Irony of all ironies!

“It’s a black fly on your Chardonnay
It’s a death row pardon two minutes too late…”
- from “Ironic” by Alanis Morissette

I read in a previous issue of this paper that Mayor Treñas is leaving for Korea. Treñas will attend a three-day meeting of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI). I did a research on this initiative and this particular meeting and I found out some interesting information.

According to its web site ICLEI “is an international association of local governments and national and regional local government organizations that have made a commitment to sustainable development.” I would like to highlight “sustainable development” which our mayor seems not to understand very well.

ICLEI partners with United Nations in different programs and was actually founded in the UN headquarters in New York. This group supports the environmental initiatives of the UN and the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). IPCC, composed of scientists from all over the world, declared in a recent conference that human activity is the main cause of global warming and highlighted fossil burning activities (coal plants) among others.

I commend ICLEI for its laudable objectives and its global efforts to tackle global environmental issues particularly global warming to the level of local governments. In fact, this meeting in Jeju, Korea will “address the future role of local governments in the international effort to tackle climate change.”

The website http://www.iclei.org/ is indeed very impressive and informative. It features efforts of local governments from different cities to combat global warming, stories about renewable sources of energy and conferences on this and that environmentally-sound alternatives.

Of course here in Iloilo City, our local government’s effort is promoting the construction of a coal plant! And by the way, Treñas is a current member of ICLEI’s Executive Committee “that oversee the implementation of the Strategic Plan and ICLEI operations”. Tsk ,tsk, now you understand why I have that title in this article.

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By the way I prepared a short speech for Treñas to deliver in the ICLEI meeting. Please read below.

Today we have gathered here as members of the Executive Committee of ICLEI to tackle our role as local government executives in the issue of climate change. Indeed we have a big role as we are the grassroots leaders in our communities.

We should continue to promote sustainable development. The development that can sustain our political careers and our pockets. What use is development if we are without power?” (Big smile)

That is why in my beloved city, the City of Iloilo, I am supporting the building of a coal fired power plant. And yes this proposed coal plant will be very clean as it will utilize what the proponents say as the “clean coal technology”. Sounds hi-tech, right?

I really believe them because they are my friends. In fact they even gave me a nice treat – an all-expense paid trip to Taiwan, among other gifts! (Wink, wink...) But of course it was to view a coal plant, a study trip. And my, oh my, I loved the beaches in Taiwan. But then again it was a study trip and yes I learned a lot about coal plants!

Despite of volumes of studies that document the hazards of coal plants, I now believe the proponents when they say coal plants are clean. Why? Because they are my friends! And we should trust our friends, right?

Further, when I went to Taiwan, the coal plant emissions are colorless, odorless, and tasteless. Yes I went up the plant’s smoke stack, smelled and tasted the emissions. It was fun climbing up and down the ladder, by the way.

Anyway, what I am trying to point out here is that what you cannot see, smell or taste could not possibly hurt you. Right? How scientific could you get? I actually failed in my high school chemistry class (if my memory serves me right) but heck, I am the mayor now and mayors don’t need chemistry.

And when I was there I never heard anybody cough or I never saw a sickly person. So I declare that coal plant emissions cannot cause asthma or cancer. I’m very observant, right? I knew it I could have been a good scientist.

Now, I appeal to you in behalf of my coal plant friends. Let us declare the building of coal plants as sustainable development projects.

Let us ignore the opinion of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and Drug Administration, the studies by Harvard School of Public Health and many other institutions that detail the hazards of coal plants to the environment and to people’s health.

Let us ignore the declaration of UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that point to burning fossil fuels, majority of which from coal plants, as the culprit in climate change.

As a member of this executive committee, I move that we declare all those scientists to be anti-development and adopt my scientific methods as the new standards.

This is, ladies and gentlemen, our role as local government executives in the issue of climate change. I, thank you. (Bow!)