AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.

Mayors Take the Lead; Cities: The federal government has been dithering on climate change and energy conservation for years. Lucky for us, America's local leaders are filling the vacuum.(Cover story)

Newsweek

| April 16, 2007 | Underwood, Anne | COPYRIGHT 2007 Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Any reuse, distribution or alteration without express written permission of Newsweek is prohibited. For permission: www.newsweek.com. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)Copyright

Byline: Anne Underwood (With Matthew Philips)

Sometimes great ideas are born of desperation. For Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, that sense of urgency developed in the winter of 2004-05, when the annual snowfall failed to materialize in the neighboring Cascade Mountains. That's a serious issue in Seattle, where melting snow feeds the city's reservoirs in the spring-time and swells the river that supplies its hydroelectric energy. Nickels's advisers were coming to him weekly with reports that the snow pack was just 1 percent of normal. "I don't think 'normal' exists anymore," Nickels remembers saying, having endured a succession of unusually warm winters. "Normal would be cause for popping champagne corks."

Nickels wasn't the only one who was starting to worry about climate change. In February 2005, 141 nations worldwide were preparing to put the Kyoto Protocol into effect--aiming to reduce global warming by cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The United States was notably not one of them, so Nickels decided to "show the world there was intelligent life in the United States after all" by getting American cities to commit to Kyoto's targets. He drafted a document called the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement and presented it along with eight fellow mayors at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in March 2005. Their goal: to have 141 of their colleagues sign within a year, equaling the number of foreign countries that were party to Kyoto.

Two years later, a maverick idea has blossomed into a movement. To date, 435 mayors have signed on, Republican and Democratic, in Red States and Blue, from the crunchy coasts to the conservative heartland. Some of them govern cities with longstanding records of environmental activism, such as Chicago, San Francisco and Portland, Ore. But their ranks also include recent converts like conservative Republican Robert Cluck of Arlington, Texas, and Tom Barrett of Milwaukee, who just two years ago said it would be hard for him to join because of his city's commitment to promoting industry. Their combined efforts are now far more than symbolic. "These cities represent 61 million people," says Nickels. "That's equivalent to ...

Related articles from newspapers, magazines, journals, and more
Inaugural BIOTECHNICA AMERICA 2003 Attracts Hundreds of Global Life Science...
Press release article from: PR Newswire June 4, 2003 700+ words
...meeting to convene in the United States, attracted more than...and throughout the United States to the inaugural event...BIOTECHNICA AMERICA in San Francisco." BIOTECHNICA AMERICA...BIOTECHNICA event in the United States, took place April...
United States : San Francisco on cutting edge of the carbon credit culture.
News wire article from: TendersInfo July 18, 2009 700+ words
Byline: Mamta03 San Francisco has always been an innovator on...man who is leading this idea is San Francisco Mayor -- and quite possibly California...Being mayor of green-minded San Francisco means that you are always thinking...
United States: SAN FRANCISCO AWARDED $96 MILLION IN HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS GRANT.
News wire article from: TendersInfo July 18, 2009 700+ words
...in funds to housing developments in San Francisco seeking to start construction. Awards...This funding is a critical piece of San Francisco s economic stimulus efforts these developments...quickly on projects that will make San Francisco a more environmentally and economically...
United States : San Francisco turns to wind power to hit carbon neutrality by...
News wire article from: TendersInfo October 1, 2009 700+ words
...renewable future. Anyone who has visited San Francisco (or attended a 49ers game at blustery...skyscrapers. It only makes sense for San Francisco one of the most ambitious cities when...step will be to chart out the part of San Francisco with ideal conditions for turbines...
United States: San Francisco company wins Thunderbird shuttle contract.
News wire article from: TendersInfo August 4, 2009 700+ words
...efforts in the Reno-Tahoe market. The company headquartered at San Francisco employs three at its Reno office. Bus drivers and other personnel are dispatched from San Francisco. El Camino Trailways also operates fixed-route and dial-a...
United States: San Francisco to Get Clearwire wimax in 2010.
News wire article from: TendersInfo August 10, 2009 700+ words
...Long Term Evolution (LTE), isn t going to arrive in the San Francisco Bay Area until sometime in 2010, according to Bill Morrow...lot of people in different parts of the country, including San Francisco. Clearwire has so far launched its service in four cities...
San Francisco Opera Center. (United States: San Francisco; Opera in Review).
Magazine article from: Opera Canada Bender, John September 22, 2002 700+ words
The San Francisco Opera Center offers intimate productions each year to spotlight its Adler Fellows, younger singers who train with the company...
United States: San Francisco Plan Promotes Urban Wind Power.
News wire article from: TendersInfo October 3, 2009 700+ words
...150-pound rooftop turbine, which generates a maximum of half a kilowatt, is already at three sites here, including the San Francisco Zoo. The report recommends refunding manufacturers' permitting costs and studying small-scale turbines' effect on birds...
For more facts and information, see all results
©2009 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
About us | FAQs | Contact us | Privacy policy | Terms and conditions
Other Gale sites: Encyclopedia.com | HighBeam Research | Acquire Content | Books & Authors | Goliath | MovieRetriever | Smart QandA