Holy (Green) Crap

The mayor, along with the co-sponsorship or every (sworn in) alderman except Hoyle and Stankivic, introduced an omnibus environmental bill under the guise of the revised plastic bag ban. I say 'guise' because it is a totally different bill, bearing no resemblance to the original. O-27-07 revised'D' seeks to promote recycling, which is quite better than banning plastic bags, but it does a lot more than that! I mean a lot more!! The bill would:

-Establish an Environmental Review Committee comprised of the Directors of
Rec and Parks, Public Works, Central Services, and DNEP, the last of which will
chair the group.

-Align Annapolis city purchasing to standards outlined in the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency's Comprehensive procurement guides for
products.

-Specify standards for procurement of environmentally friendly materials,
including photocopy paper, print paper, janitorial paper, cleaning supplies, CFC
refrigerants, plastic bags, wood products, electronics, motor oil, recycled
antifreeze for city vehicles, paint, pest management supplies, and according to
the bill, these are the "minimum"!

-By law, by next year, have the Committee issue green procurement
standards for EVERYTHING in the above bullet point AND MORE, and give preference to said items even if they are up to 10% more expensive than what is currently being used.

-(whoops, I just got dizzy)

-Require ALL city funded construction to meet Silver LEED
environmental building standards

-Give procurement preference to items from suppliers located within a
"reasonable" geographic distance.

This makes me a little bit crazy. I am of the belief that the affect we can have on global warming is overstated. I am not interested in debating this, but for curiosity's sake of anybody reading this, a small part of why I believe such is that Al Gore said this:

Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a
problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an
over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming)
is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions
are...

...former Vice President Al Gore(now, chairman and co-founder of
Generation Investment Management-- a London-based business that sells carbon
credits)(in interview with Grist Magazine May 9, 2006, concerning his book, An
Inconvenient Truth)

So, I'll put it to you. Do you believe in the human threat to detrimental climate change enough to accept 10% (minimum) increases in the $80 million city budget that already goes up by 8% each year. If so, encourage your alderman to vote for this bill. If not, start writing a blog and move to the county!