I can't imagine the effort that must have gone into that thoughtful analysis...

Who said they'd take questions from the audience?

Not the smartest on the planet, but we don't lack for hubris, as anyone can see but the locals....

I've been wondering the same thing, for 15 years...

Right, because a small crowd correlates with only being interested in wealthy white men. I guess that leads to a lot of classist racism inside school courses. "What? You only allow in 30-40 students? You rich snobs! I don't care if most of the class is Latino. Check your privilege!"

This confirms what I finally came to suspect (after going down a blind alley or two): The City had no frickin clue what it was doing. The City made claims that it wanted to keep its plans secret so as to increase its leverage in negotiations with Xcel. The reality was it thought if it was transparent, enough people would figure this out, and not want to go "forward." (Running in place is more like it.)

You've correctly identified that Boulder is a faith-based community. So I think we can all predict without effort that the City will not stop pursuing this dead end.

I can't remember when, but I remember Shaun McGrath saying something interesting about this, probably before he joined the Obama Admin., that, "We don't know what form the municipal utility will ultimately take." I remember he suggested something that sounded quite modest as a possibility, nothing like creating a city utility. I don't remember what it was exactly. It seemed something on the order of providing a city subsidy or loans for homeowners to install their own renewables, but don't quote me on that. That, and expanding "Smart Regs" may be what we ultimately get out of this.

And don't complain about the money involved, and what it could've been used to do instead. This is Boulder. We have money to burn like you wouldn't believe! This is just our version of "Bonfire of the Vanities"!

"NO-vember = NO Occupation Tax = NO Muni"

I voted against it when it first came up, and I'll vote against it again. The funny thing is when it first came up, the City made this claim that, "You know, with past referenda to renew taxes, we talked about how if they weren't approved, library hours might be reduced. Well now we really mean it. If the Occ. Tax isn't approved, library hours will have to be reduced." We approved the tax. I've been a rather frequent patron of the Boulder Public Library, and I learned a few months ago that library hours were reduced... The City lost that leverage. I'm sure they'll make some other empty claim to scare people, explaining forces that have nothing to do with tax revenue.

Knew about this already. You only bring this up because you think it can distract from the idea he expresses, since you think we're such moralizers. If Dinesh were a Democrat, you wouldn't give a rat's ass about it. Dinesh was separated from his wife when this happened, BTW.

I agree, but the term used is a misnomer. hydrocarbons do not contain "fossilized water." They contain hydrogen atoms, along with carbon atoms (hence the name).

We'd have the same issue if we went with hydrogen fuel cells. We get most of our hydrogen from oil. Combine that with oxygen, and you'd get water vapor that did not previously exist in our biosphere.

Having attended a few CWA events in the 2000's, I could see the criticism of it being a "progressive love-fest" as accurate. I looked over the events schedules, and looking at the titles, subject summaries, and who was on the panels, it seemed that 90% of it was just that. Typically I'd find 2 or 3 panel discussions each year that looked like they were worth the time and effort to attend, not because they featured anything politically moderate or conservative, but because they were the few that seemed to take an issue seriously, and had people who valued knowledge on those subjects on the panels to discuss them. I'd get something out of those few half the time. Each year I'd look and see, "Is there more of this quality," and sadly I'd see there wasn't. Each year, after I'd attended a few of the good panels, I'd skip the rest. I couldn't explain this disparity in quality, except to think that there was a heavy political influence in the event planning, and an unserious disposition towards knowledgeable discussion. It seemed that a lot of the events were oriented around merging an issue with "entertainment value," to keep things light and shallow. I'd be in favor of keeping the CWA around if I could see movement towards making it an event that cared about substance, rather than ego stroking.