“America’s mayors, responding to a growing sense of urgency over climate change,These climate changes we have had is not helping the cause. The urge to use non appropriate green related materials is getting quite hard to accomplish. They have realized the difficulty in changing
are rapidly stepping up programs to weatherize buildings, capture methane gas
from landfills” (Roosevelt).
ways according to the Kyoto-like pact. To help mayors get a head start onThis is all for the better, hoping that they will improve the U.S.’s carbon footprint. 728 mayors who make up a quarter of the nation’s population have actually signed up to help out in this Kyoto Protocol where they believe they should target a greenhouse gas emission to go below 7% 1990 levels by 2012, similar to the actual Kyoto target that the U.S. refused to sign. Some mayors are finding out that they are unable to live up to these standards. Some of them believe it is impossible considering the huge population their city holds. Mayors are still trying to find a way to live it up.
this project, Congress “has included block grants in energy legislation…up to $2
billion a year in a House Bill to jump start green jobs initiatives, training
low-income workers to retrofit buildings and install climate-friendly energy
systems” (Roosevelt).
In my opinion, I like how the mayors have taken the responsibility to achieve this goal of being green. I still don’t agree with the idea that Bush denies anything that has to deal with global warming a form of trying to reduce our emissions by a lot in order to prevent his play on words, “climate change”. I thought Bush should have tackled this head on instead of just the municipalities trying to get a hold of this issue. Some mayors find it hard to control with a huge population to manage in the first place such as LA where Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says,
“just think about the need in my city: a million people go to work every day onThere are so many needs within the city of Los Angeles. He questions why we can’t have more efficient systems such as a subway. These obstacles need to be resolved in order to better our living style as polluting Americans, contributing to ‘global warming’. Mayors need to step up even further in order to tackle this issue head on because the Bush Administration won’t.
Wilshire Boulevard. It connects downtown with Santa Monica—to biggest
centers of jobs—and yet we don’t have a subway” (Roosevelt).
Works Cited: LA Times Sunday Edition by Margot Roosevelt
2 comments:
It is really easy to say your going to do something, the hard part is to follow it through. I know a bunch of people that are all for the environemnt but never do anything to support the cause. I think this is what the mayors have done, they rushed into it saying they will do something without thinking about if it could be done.
I think it's good that they mayors are trying to make a difference because our President isn't, but what will really happen. I definitely think the mayors are right when they say that their populations are too large. It either needs to happen from higher up or it will never change.
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