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2005-07-04 - 12:21 p.m.

...climate change...

Yesterday my stepfather emailed me an op-ed piece from the New York Times, about the city of Portland, OR, and its successful effort to bring itself in line with the Kyoto Protocol. Over the past ten years, the city has successfully lowered its CO2 emissions by 5-10% below the 1990 emission levels. Hurray for Portland! This is a city where I would want to live! The article did not go into too much detail about the city's efforts but it mentioned that the city invested extensively in bicycle lanes and park-n-ride lots; it provides free public transportation passes to people working in the cities, and provides financial incentives to city businesses who encourage carpooling.

The article further stated that because of the city's efforts to decrease emissions, it also became substantially more energy efficient. The end result was that TAKING PREVENTATIVE MEASURES TO REDUCE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS ACTUALLY IMPROVED THE CITY ECONOMY. I love Portland, OR. Both because of their efforts, because also because it has actively demonstrated that taking action against carbon emissions does NOT mean that the economy will suffer (unlike the position taken by our bumbling president during his negotiations with the G8.)

I want to mail this article to everyone, in particular to our own city's mayor, who signed up to become a "green city" but thus far has done nothing(apart from pursue the 2012 Olympics as if it were the Holy Grail). Imagine if a city of 10,000,000 people could come online! Imagine if NYC became a place where one could bicycle safely to work!

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