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4A Daily News – Tuesday, August 28, 2012 Opinion DAILYNEWS RED BLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U N T Y S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes let- ters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All let- ters must be signed and pro- vide the writer's home street address and home phone num- ber. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submit- ted will be considered for publi- cation. Letters will be edited. Letters are published at the discretion of the editor. 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How to reach us Main office: 527-2151 Classified: 527-2151 Circulation: 527-2151 News tips: 527-2153 Sports: 527-2153 Obituaries: 527-2151 Photo: 527-2153 On the Web www.redbluffdailynews.com Fax Newsroom: 527-9251 Classified: 527-5774 Retail Adv.: 527-5774 Legal Adv.: 527-5774 Business Office: 527-3719 Address 545 Diamond Ave. Red Bluff, CA 96080, or P.O. Box 220 Red Bluff, CA 96080 spirit Editor: Sierra Pacific Industries logging practices aid control of fire. We were evacuated Satur- day night from our Lake McCumber home in eastern Shasta County. I took the RV while my wife followed in our car and visiting daughter and grandsons followed in theirs. Our daughter left us in Red Bluff, an hour away, and made an unplanned late night trip back to Concord. Arriving late at Durango Resort shows community RV Resort in Red Bluff we found the gate closed. A park guest happened to enter the gate using their code and we caravanned in behind. The office was closed so I helped myself to a space. I began set- ting up the RV when Kendall Donaldson, a manager, soon greeted me and asked if I had a reservation. When I told him no, that we had just been evacuated he was very sympa- thetic and said to come see him at the office in the morn- ing. He then stopped and asked my wife if she was OK. We then finished setting up for the night. The next morning (Sunday) I went to the office to get caught up on the fees for the RV. I really did not know how long it would be until we could return to our home, or even if it would still be stand- ing when we did get back. Kendall was very generous and said to stay a couple of nights without charge, even though I offered to pay. He said that there were others who arrived to the park later the night before. On Monday, it was appar- ent that we would remained evacuated from our home. By then the fire was within a mile of Hwy. 44 and less than 2 miles from our home. I went to the office to arrange for 2- 3 more nights. The staff at Durango RV Resort was so generous and courteous and refused to accept payment. Kendall agreed that if we needed to stay more than 3 more nights, then we would work out some payment if just to cover the electricity we were sucking up through our two air conditioners in the 100 degree weather. Wednesday afternoon we were able to pack it in and return home. The fire had not crossed Hwy. 44 owing to the regeneration logging prac- tices of Sierra Pacific Indus- tries that slowed the fire down and aided fire line construc- tion in front of that part of the fire. The patch work pattern of logging provided ready- made clearings to accelerate fire line construction as well as reduce the volume of fuel that the fire had available to continue forward thus slow- ing the fire. It is with extreme gratitude that we thank Durango RV Your Turn Resort for their community spirit shown to us and others who found their way to Durango while fleeing from the Ponderosa Fire. And with the same gratitude that we praise Sierra Pacific Industries for their logging practices. There is no doubt in my mind, as a former Community spirit lives on in Northern California. wildland fire manager of many years, a forester regis- tered in the State of Califor- nia, and a tree farm owner that Sierra Pacific's practices south of Hwy. 44 contributed significantly to the contain- ment of the north area of the fire and prevented it from consuming many more homes in the Lake McCumber, Viola, and Star Light Pines areas of Shingletown. As many in the area have already said: We dodged a bullet. Lake McCumber Ed Stewart, Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Jim Nielsen (R) State Capitol Bldg., Room 6031 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 319-2002; Fax (916) 319-2102 STATE SENATOR — Doug LaMalfa (R) State Capitol Bldg., Room 3070 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 651-4004; Fax (916) 445-7750 GOVERNOR — Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 558-3160; E-mail: gover- nor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Wally Herger (R), 2595 Cean- othus Ave., Ste. 182, Chico, CA 95973; 893-8363. U.S.SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 393-0710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 224- 0454. Paying dearly for global warming hysteria Commentary NOTE: Tea Party Patriots will host Republican Assembly- man Tim Donnelly, a dynamic speaker on, and leader for, gov- ernment reform. Those who've heard him raved about him. It practically leaps out of the envelopes and off the pages of my PG&E bills, espe- cially when compared and contrasted to electricity bills from Central Electric Cooperative, Inc. (CEC) for our Bend, Oregon, home. "It" is the exorbitant cost of electricity charged to residential customers for the dubious privi- lege of California living (similar costs to businesses surely hurt our economy and unemploy- ment rate). Have you looked at the break- Don Polson The way I see it in Bend pay. your rates shoot up to make those higher-but-essential KWHs very expensive. Then I gaze upon the rate – one, single rate – that is charged to us in Bend: 7.33 cents per KWH. Wow! Is your mouth hanging open or do you need to grab a calculator to see what your PG&E bill would be if every last KWH was 7.33 cents. I did; instead of a $204 bill, it would have been about $83, and last summer's peak bill would have been about $110 instead of $317. I assume that you likewise pay two and a half to almost three times what folks down of the rates that apply to your different tiers of usage? They are listed as "Baseline," "101-130% of Baseline," and so on up to, if you are staying cool to survive a heat wave, "201- 300% of Baseline." You might think that your "Baseline" is free electricity because there's no price, but that would be wrong thinking. If you pay attention to your bill, you'll quickly see that you pay from almost 13 cents per kilowatt hour (KWH) to over 34 cents per KWH. Your effective rate overall will range from, in my case, 18 cents per KWH last month up to 21+ cents per KWH in last sum- mer's peak. You do see, of course, that as your reasonable needs increase in a straight line, ness office to see if there were higher rates that kick in, for instance, for someone with a very large, all-electric house with a big air conditioning unit, or two, as well as electric water heater and clothes dryer. Nope, the lady said, that's the rate. However, there is a flat monthly "Facilities charge" of $11.75, which still leaves the cost a frac- tion of PG&E's. Oh, and in the winter (November through March up there), the rate drops to 7.07 cents. You and I both know why, right? Why cheap, 5 cent per KWH coal-produced electricity is not used. Why literally $10s of millions worth of wind tur- bines and solar arrays have been built, that cannot produce elec- tricity for less than, I think I've previously reported, 30-40 cents per KWH. Yes, by law Califor- I actually called CEC's busi- Moreover, lest we lowly sub- jects of Sacramento entertain any doubts about the wisdom of such schemes, state and national news reports regularly provide us with selectively massaged global warming/climate change propaganda. On July 11, AP reported "Global warming tied to risk of weather extremes," and then, on August 1, "Calif. report will guide climate-change decisions." (Oceans rising; sky falling) For the alternative arguments to, and refutations of, the warm- ing/alarmist positions, go to "Polecat News and Views" (don- polson.blogspot.com) and click on the "global warming" label. Look up articles: "How Bad Data Contribute to Global Warming Hysteria" (August 21), which uses the Tahoe City area to illustrate the erroneous use of land temperature measurements to drive the warming narrative. "Satellite data show no net warming for as long as such data have been collected, i.e., back to 1979. Ocean measurements show no net warming over that period, either …" As Anthony Watts (wattsup- withthat.com) has demonstrated, weather station siting has skewed the reported tempera- tures higher due to, in the case of Tahoe City, proximity to burn barrels, tennis courts and park- ing lots that didn't exist decades nia utilities can't buy cheap coal-produced energy; other states can, of course, so we only gouge ourselves via PG&E and AB 32, the CA cap and trade law mandating so-called "renew- able" green energy. When, that is, the sun shines and the wind blows. ago. Gov. Jerry Brown then uses such bogus data to scare mon- ger, via his office's website, over the supposedly "well document- ed" global warming impact on Lake Tahoe, as well as how "humanity is getting dangerous- ly close to the point of no return." (More sky falling). Rather than admonishing us to "wake up and honestly face the facts," "moonbeam" Brown should simply look at tempera- ture data from stations located in actual forests or at a forest-locat- ed ranger station, which show no warming going back to at least 1949. By the way, Mr. Watts et al found that almost 90 percent of the 1,221 weather sta- tions used by the National Weather Service (NWS), under NOAA, "fail to meet the NWS's own siting requirements" for distance from artificial heat sources. "A tornado of misinforma- tion" (7/29) uses NOAA data to prove there are no inordinate spikes of tornado activity. "More from the climatefail files" show "how NPR and other media out- lets breathlessly distorted a NASA report on melting ice in Greenland." In "NASA's James Hansen's big cherry pick," Anthony Watts handily refutes Hansen's hysterical proclama- tion that it's … the … hottest … ever. "Global Climate, the big Picture" asserts a general cool- ing trend for Northern Europe for 2,000 years, based on Lap- land tree rings. There's more to read. Don Polson has called Red Bluff home since 1988. He can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@yahoo.com.