Stepping up to the Plate

It's going to take every person in the community to help. This is so big, it's going to take every person and brain cell in Austin. So just let us get our arms around the vehicles and mechanisms for how to do this first."

Toby Futrell on the Mayor's Austin Climate Protection Plan (ACPP)

One of the most important aspects of the mayor's initiative is that every cause needs a leader, a champion. Without such, great ideas can be mired in planning or worse...go unplanned. The Mayor's role in the U.S. Conference of Mayors speaks to the positive effects of sharing our successses with other leaders or learning from those who have walked down similar paths. The same can be said for the role of planners, designers, local authorities and citizens in how we continue to shape this region. The sharing of information and acting upon well thought out plans can make bold and great visions a reality.

How Cool Is Austin?
With a deep, collective breath, the city rolls out a world-class – but as yet unproven – climate-protection plan
Katherine Gregor, AUSTIN CHRONICLE

"It's a moral challenge for us as human beings to step up." Mayor Will Wynn is blunt when he talks about the global climate change crisis and the new Austin Climate Protection Plan. Embodied in a resolution adopted unanimously by City Council in February, the plan states no less lofty a goal than to "make Austin the leading city in the nation" in the fight against global warming. The mayor asserts that he, the council, and the city manager are fully engaged and "very serious collectively" about reducing Austin's greenhouse-gas emissions. Such leadership is critical at the city level, the council resolution states, because "the federal government has failed to enact meaningful responses to reverse the threat of global warming."

In his office last week, Wynn spoke at length about the Climate Protection Plan, with an infectious passion that made it evident the 45-year-old mayor has found his bliss. "I am so optimistic and energized and motivated!" said Wynn. "Shame on us, as a city and as a community, if we don't step up as a model for saving the planet."

It's not every day a mayor gets to be Superman and save the world. But is Austin's new plan really that good? And is it achievable? "My overall take is that Austin's ambitious plan really is among the best in the nation, along with Seattle, Portland, and Santa Monica," said Glen Brand, in the Portland, Maine, office of the Sierra Club's Global Warming & Energy...I think it's the single most comprehensive global warming plan of any city in the U.S.," said Jim Marston, director of the energy program for Environmental Defense in Austin. "It's put a spring in my step!"

"This goes beyond what any city in America has done for outlining a vision and aggressive goals," echoed his colleague Colin Rowan. "Is it achievable? Well, even if we miss the most aggressive goals a bit, we'll have improved things far more than we would have if we didn't set the bar this high."

for more information...
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A453478