Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon

You come and go, you come and go

Loving would be easy if your colors were like my dreams

Red, gold, and green, red, gold, and green

— Culture Club, 1983

On March 3, 2015, Gov. Tom Wolf rolled out his budget priorities before a Republican Pennsylvania legislature intent on showing the freshman Democrat the hardball realities of Harrisburg.

Wolf advised the GOP that Pennsylvania would get nowhere if they did not work together diligently to undergird the middle class. He proposed three broad, simple priorities: schools that teach, jobs that pay, and government that works.

The Republicans responded with ... nothing. The July 1 fiscal deadline came and went. So did Aug. 1, Sept. 1, Oct. 1, and so on, until the following March — 272 days without a state budget — until the Republicans drew up and passed a budget of their own, which Wolf allowed to pass without his signature. The GOP’s chastening lesson for the governor was that the schools teach OK, sort of, and the jobs pay enough, and government works — when a blue governor realizes it’s a red state.

Did the lesson take? Is Wolf defiant or humbled? Is he wiser or bolder? Did he accomplish these three objectives to his — or your — satisfaction?

We start the new year and Wolf’s second term with a new initiative. Last week, Wolf signed Executive Order 2019-01 establishing the first statewide goal to reduce carbon pollution in Pennsylvania. The order also establishes the GreenGov Council with the mission to boost green and sustainable practices in state government and help achieve the goals set in the executive order, while saving taxpayers money and creating jobs in the state’s clean energy economy.

While the federal government fixates on border security, “states and cities are stepping up and doing their part to reduce emissions,” Wolf said in a statement, adding, “I am proud to declare the commonwealth’s intention to address climate change, the most critical environmental threat facing the world.”

Using 2005 as a benchmark, the plan is to achieve a 26 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 and an 80 percent reduction by 2050. The GreenGov Council will work with state agencies to reduce energy use in state government and improve energy efficiency of state buildings and vehicle fleets, saving taxpayers money in the process.

The GreenGov Council will become a central coordinating body — a stand-alone bureaucracy — to promote specific agency performance goals:

n Reduce overall energy consumption by 3 percent per year, and 21 percent by 2025, as compared to 2017 levels.

n Replace 25 percent of the state passenger car fleet with battery electric and plug-in electric hybrid cars by 2025.

n Procure renewable energy to offset at least 40 percent of the commonwealth’s annual electricity use.

This is a noble pursuit and represents environmental stewardship that everyone should support. In fact, it’s already being achieved in the private sector.

The vehicles driving around Butler County today are far more energy-efficient than those our grandparents owned and drove. We’re converting our public transportation to clean-burning compressed natural gas. Grandma and grandpa rode coal and diesel trains when they were kids. Their home heating systems belched smoke. So did their factories.

There’s no need to make climate change a state issue, particularly when the three primary issues targeted by Gov. Wolf in 2015 — schools that teach, jobs that pay, government that works — still occupy the forefront of our attention, as they should his.