A ballot to further restrict the supply of oil and gas from CO. Polis, post-election, is now free to make CO even more like CA. And English words for animals in the field, but French on the plate?
You've enjoyed the high prices on natural gas and oil so far right? Thought to yourself that you'd like them to go even higher?
If you've answered yes to either or both, have I got a deal for you!
First a brief history lesson--admittedly missing some detail but right in the broad strokes:
1. Coloradans voted down an initiative to mandate setbacks on oil and gas wells
2. Democrats came to power and, despite our stated wishes, put in SB181. The commission they created later put in those setbacks. Governor Polis (see the attached screenshot from his personal FB page and 2019) declared an end to the oil and gas wars because now we'd all be winners; safety, stability, security, local control would be ours!
I think some folks didn't get the message sadly. Per the article linked below, some environmentalists are putting an initiative on the 2024 ballot to end all oil and gas drilling in Colorado.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Ardent environmentalists only see that which they advocate for. They do not see much else--including your ability to comfortably make a living and raise a family.
https://www.cpr.org/2023/04/11/colorado-oil-and-gas-permits-ballot-measure-draft/
Now securely in power, the statements that Polis and others made prior to the election can be ignored.
You can add the below to your list of things that, election having safely been passed, the Democrats running this state can quit pretending on.
The article below details the Air Quality Control Commission's passage of California style mandate on emissions (and EV goals) for heavy trucks.
I've written about this rulemaking in the past; they've been considering this for some time now and had been putting it off. Coincidentally, now that the governor et. al. have secured reelection the rulemaking was taken down off the shelf, dusted off, and passed.
I'll leave it to you to read up on the requirements if you're interested. They're in the Sun article linked first below. Yet another in a series of rushed mandates without much time or thought put into why things are the way they are now, and whether or not alternatives that won't raise costs exist.
If you're not interested/involved in heavy trucks and don't care about the potential for higher prices, I want to call one last thing to your attention. If you breathe a sigh of relief at having been passed over, don't fret.
It's not that you're not on the list. It's that they haven't gotten to you yet. Take a look at screenshot 1 from the same article. They'll get around to cars soon.
What's that? Didn't Governor Polis promise that they wouldn't be following CA regarding rules on cars and light EV's? Yes, yes he did. Take a look at screenshot 2 from the article linked second below.
The important thing about what Polis said, though, was that he said it in Sept of 2022, before the election. You see, we're now safely past that little speedbump and free to quit pretending that we're middle of the road.
https://coloradosun.com/2023/04/24/colorado-clean-trucks-ozone-greenhouse-gas-electric/
https://gazette.com/colorado-other-states-weigh-adopting-californias-electric-car-mandate/article_4e32dd76-2bbb-11ed-b459-a31c0b87609f.html
English in the field, French on the plate.
Last one of the day and you know what that means: something for fun, a curiosity and not related to current politics.
Also will be the last one for a couple days because I'll be away from my computer tomorrow.
I have been listening to an interesting audiobook/series of lectures about English (in another life I believe I would have been happy as a linguist). I linked to the Denver Public Library citation below if you're curious. If you have a library card with DPL, you can download it for free and listen (I believe they have a paper book too if you like reading that--you can get it Interlibrary Loan if you're not local).
The whole series has been fascinating, but there's something I thought I'd share. Below is a pretty simplified version of what I heard in the book, but it'll do for now.
There was a time back in history when England was run by French speakers. As you might imagine the language divide followed pretty closely along the class divide: the peasantry spoke mainly English and the upper strata of society spoke mainly French.
As with people, there was some mingling and mixing of words from both languages. English speakers have picked up quite a few words from other languages over time and this period of history was no exception.**
An interesting linguistic theory follows from this. It's about the origin of words for the animal in the field vs. the animal on the plate.
Take a look at the table I attached. See the pattern? The animal in the field, the thing that needs tending (or hunting), is named in English. The animal on the plate is named in French.
The inference here is that the peasants spoke of the animals they saw most often: the things that they had to tend while the French spoke most often of the animals they saw on their dinner plates.
Seems reasonable enough to me. This sort of thing absolutely fascinates me. If you feel the same, check out that book/course. Really worth the time.
Have a good Friday!
**Another bit of mixing into English? Old Norse. I forget all the details now, but there was a treaty signed that ceded a fair bit of Northern England to people of Norse origin. Words like "they" and "egg" come to us from that language.
https://catalog.denverlibrary.org/search/title.aspx?ctx=1.1033.0.0.6&pos=1&cn=2176512