Covid may keep us apart for a while, but we are still keeping it together via hybrid meetings.
Notes from the Jan. 12 meeting of
The Rotary Club of Clover Park
recorded by Tom McClellan
With zoomers approximately equal in number to the inpersonators, we celebrated another instance of fellowship and togetherness. And we welcomed Brian Casey, a guest of President Teresa Nye. Brian just opened his own civil engineering consulting firm. Jeannie Hill reported that there was no sunshine to report, but if any members or family are under the weather we want to know about it.
Announcements
Membership Director Gretchen Allen reminded everyone about the membership challenge. All members are expected to put forward the name of someone who would make a great Rotarian, whether or not that person is ready to join. Let’s expand the great experience that is our club so that more people can benefit. Gretchen also says that if you bring in a new member between now and February, you could be in the running for a prize with a dinner gift certificate going to the nominator, and one also to the new member.
Future Programs
Jan. 19 Supt. Ron Banner, Clover Park School District Update
Jan. 26 Josh Castle, Low Income Housing Institute (LIHI)
Feb. 2 Bill Lokey, Volcano Hazard Management in Washington State
Our own Bill Harrison is going to be recognized at the Lakewood City Council meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 18 at 7 PM. The Lakewood Community Foundation will be presenting him with the Larry Saunders Service Award for his many years of service to the City of Lakewood, including standing it up as a new city in 1996 and serving as its first mayor. It would be great if Rotarians could join that meeting. It will be a hybrid Council meeting, so you can attend either in person or via Zoom. The link for the Zoom access is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86872632373.
Bob Lawrence noted that the Lakewood Playhouse is presenting Haunting of Hill House, a scary play. But apparently it is not scary enough to keep Covid away, and the Playhouse subsequently announced that the opening is going to be postponed until Friday, January 21 at 8PM. Get more details at https://www.lakewoodplayhouse.org/.
President’s Minute
The legendary race track tires that Teresa wanted and received for Christmas have gotten themselves put onto her car. But the car still has not made it out of her garage due to all of the snow and rain.
Fun And Fines
Ed Trobaugh was in attendance via Zoom, but at the last minute he tapped Sergeant At Arms David Cotant to serve as Finemaster Pro Tem. David was also serving as greeter, and rafflemeister for the meeting, so he started off by noting that the zoomers were not present to play the raffle, and thus were not contributing to the raffle pot, and so he strongly suggested that they send in $5 to cover for that. And that includes zoomer Ed Trobaugh.
Ed also agreed to contribute $25 for his last minute appointment of David as Pro Tem.
Sheri Hodson paid off her $20 for getting interrupted with a customer during her last Zoom attendance.
Then suddenly in the middle of all the fine activities, Carr’s Restaurant received a shipment of wine.
Tom McClellan noted that his travel plans were interrupted by White Pass being closed due to excessive snow, so he and wife Shelley could not get up there to go skiing. $5.
Bob Lawrence had 12 house guests over Christmas, most of whom could not leave due to flight cancellations. Bob says he had forgotten how much young people can eat. $50.
Becky Newton paid some Happy Bucks, because her son had started an e-commerce business a few years ago and has now paid off his partner so he now owns the business outright.
David Cotant was happy to be standing upright, having gotten cortisone shots in his back. $5.
Gretchen Allen paid $5 for not having a Rotary pin, and tried to leverage that into a rat on Paul Webb for Paul having himself ratted on David Cotant for leaving the raffle desk, such that Paul had to get sold potentially defective tickets by sub-deputy rafflemeister Mike Killen [ed. note: this is what English teachers refer to as “foreshadowing”.] But the crowd was not sympathetic to the abandonment charge after David noted that even the almighty Sergeant At Arms has to use the bathroom periodically.
This Week’s Program
Todd Myers is the Environmental Director at the Washington Policy Center, helping to research and craft recommendations on legislative initiatives related to the environment. He comes from a background as a member of the executive team at the WA State Dept. of Natural Resources. He also got P.R. experience working for the Seattle Supersonics from 1997 to 2000, and prior to that as Director of Public Relations for the Seattle Mariners. He is author of the 2011 book, “Eco-Fads: How the Rise of Trendy Environmentalism Is Harming the Environment”.
Todd noted that the #1 focus for Governor Inslee is climate change and CO2 emissions. But the State’s emissions are actually rising (as of 2019). There is disagreement about how much of the earth’s warming in the past 100 years arises from CO2.
The State is also not meeting goals on salmon recovery. There has been no progress in the Puget Sound since 1999. Activists believe dam removal will help, but the removal of the Elwha dam has not resulted in any improvement there. On the Snake River, which has a lot of dams that activists want to remove, the fall Chinook runs are almost recovered. Its spring and summer runs are still struggling, though. The Snake River is actually doing better than the Puget Sound.
Gov. Inslee wants another $100 million for rooftop solar, but western Washington is among the worst locations in the lower 48 states. And rooftop solar is the most expensive form of renewable electricity. State law says we must be 100% renewable by 2030. WA currently has more nuke power than wind and solar combined.
The governor also wants another $100 million for electric vehicle (EV) subsidies. But most EVs are owned by rich people, for whom the subsidies do not matter much. Myers noted that the amount of CO2 reduction per dollar of EV subsidies is very low.
The Washington Policy Center proposes ranking CO2 reduction proposals by their cost and effectiveness.
Questions:
Which rivers in Puget Sound are major salmon runs? Green, Nisqually, and Puyallup.
What is happening with new nuclear technology? Fukushima set that option back more than 3 Mile Island in the minds of policy makers, but there is growing recognition that nuclear is needed for CO2 reduction. One problem is that conventional nuke plants operate at full production or nothing. They cannot be throttled easily. New modular nuke plants propose to address this but they are still a decade away.
Wind turbines in WA are cheaper than rooftop solar to add capacity, but they are getting pushback from environmental groups. Wind blows a lot at night in Ellensburg, when demand is low. WA needs to implement “time of day” pricing to shift more demand to the middle of the night.
For other questions, Todd welcomes messages at tmyers@washingtonpolicy.org.
Raffle: With $94 in the pot, the winning ticket was held by Paul Webb, who had earlier complained about the supposed defectiveness. He drew a 2 of spades.
And Finally…
Thousands protest global warming.
