Following that hair brained logic....

If you're so incensed by Obama....why don't you just git out of 'Merica?

It's actually crystal clear what Xcel would do in the face of a carbon tax, just like any corporation, it would raise rates to offset these costs. This creates a disincentive for them to adjust their methods, particularly demonstrated by the building of the Commanche-3 plant. It ran way, way, way over-budget and was fraught with technical issues...but who pays for this mismanagement? The ratepayers, yet again. On the other hand, a carbon tax on a would incentivize a municipal utility to seek more renewable, which is possibly at such a scale.

This is textbook stuff in the field of environmental economics, and some of you could desperately use some information that didn't come straight from the horses butt. http://www.env-econ.net/carbon_tax_vs_capandtrade...

These paper tigers are going to get right to the bottom of this (nebulous) topic. I guarantee this retreat ends with the grand idea to raise tuition...again.

Just like the greater downtown area, this market has become over-priced, overrun with companies, and has indeed completely lost touch with the idea of community (agriculture). We have wine from the western slope, salmon from Alaska, and a slew of other vendors that also aren't remotely local. How does this represent Boulder County, except as some conglomerated outdoor grocery store for dilettantes. Will Udi's Breadworks lose their livelihood if instead people buy their products from the countless stores they also sell to? Longmont has done a far better job keeping with the spirit of a farmers market, where as here it has become nothing more than a weekly, commercialized festival to attract tourists.

Sales were down this year because the participating farms had an abysmally bad growing season. For the first 2 months of the season, in fact, you could only get (10 varieties of) leafy greens. The need for these vendors to turn a profit, due to high membership costs, has seemingly created a monocrop culture.

Perhaps you should first look up what a proper noun is and the appropriate use of capitalization.

A-Team? Good luck finding a turd in that bowl even worth polishing. They're a Grand Old Party of B Squad towelboys.

Indeed. Correlation does not equal causation, but from your overwhelmingly paranoia towards scientific research I can say with an R-squared value of .99 that you sir are conservative solipsist.

The paper cited here expands on research done by David Clow in 2010. You see, contrary to your moronic opinion about researchers, there are those whom are employed by the guvment to investigate hard science. Their salary is set and they're not chasing any funding or have any such political motivation for the work they do. It's actually an utter embarrassment to your level of understanding of what scientific research really is. Perhaps you should read this paper and report back where the "agenda" lies within it. http://co.water.usgs.gov/publications/non-usgs/Cl...

There are a lot of card-carrying members of the Flat Earth Society that would sooner cast dispersions about the legitimacy of climate change, declaring it as some great swindle, than actually read the decades worth of peer-reviewed science that supports it. Indeed we do need to move away from Xcel Energy, desperately in fact. There is also an alarming alignment of people here whom are both skeptical of climate change and the municipal model, that continually cite the Xcel propaganda stating Boulder will not be able to source any more renewable energy than they offer, for a lesser cost, or as reliably. These are all utter falsehoods that you need not look any further than the Colorado Association of Municipal Utilities for proof (http://coloradopublicpower.org/). This "blank check" paranoia and relentlessly lame-brain skepticism towards City Gov is a perfect example of the subversive attempts to undermine the issue. Is it also not highly questionable that the Voters Against Debt Limits folk are themselves funded by Xcel, the very same company that stuck our city with a $44 million dollar, unsolicited debt for this Smart Grid? And would their little amendment, if passed, actually prevent companies from trapping cities into debt-ridden project. Certainly not.

So, what if global warming is a giant hoax and we worked to create a cleaner world for nothing?

Another classic Stick-and-Carrot strategy courtesy of Xcel Energy. The same swindle they told us about a fantastical "free" Smart Grid.

Lure you in for the carrot, right before getting your eyes poked out by the stick. By now it should be quite plain that this old saying for politicians goes DOUBLE for Xcel;

How do you know they're lying? Because their lips are moving.

This exit ramp was paved by Xcel Energy, courtesy of a cadre of nitwits that cannot see pay their own petty paranoia.

Politicians run our electricity grid now? What a laughably moronic idea. When will the Op-Ed's start that don't read like they came out of Xcel's PR department. The concept of a municipal utility is completely sound when you look at the countless examples of them running successfully here in Colorado. Of course, many lizard-brains here would rather pretend that their blank check paranoia and distrust of local government has some sort of merit.