Climate Change Summits - A Priority?

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President Obama is in Paris at a Climate Change conference where he told the world that our country is number two for causing climate change and that we recognize our role in creating the problem -- in other words, we will be spending billions to correct our evil ways. Our entire commission plus the city manager was scheduled to be in Key West for a climate change summit beginning today.

Think about it just a second. We as a city can't do much of anything about climate change unless we go to cleaner power sources that reduce emissions or encourage more people to ride bikes. We're spending small fortunes that we can't afford right now to replace our light bulbs city wide. It's probably more than most cities are doing, especially poor cities such as we. We have committed to lowering greenhouse gas, possibly putting in solar panels on our landfill with the intent of achieving renewable energy goals, a goal first mentioned by former commissioner Cara Jennings some eight years ago. We now will be spending $23 million dollars doing it and then 10 to 15 years down the road, we will have to turn around and do it all over again.

Sadly, we don't have the money to fix a pothole or our crumbling infrastructure, not only in Lake Worth but the nation as a whole that affects everyone's lives in the immediate, but we can spend thousands of dollars in Paris and in Key West listening to the ills of climate change, how sea level rise will eliminate south Florida off the map centuries from now.

"The fight against terrorism and the fight against climate change are two major global challenges we must face," Obama said.