Hi everyone (Hi Riisa. See- I'm doing it, I really am; I'm finally posting).

I've been invited to blog on betterdonkey about environmental shenanigans, so here I am... blogging about environmental news, tidbits and random thoughts.

Grist Magazine just interviewed Nickels about his initiative to get mayors across the country to "meet or beat Kyoto Protocol targets." This is a big (and cool) deal. While the Bush administration is failing us on climate change (among other things), local governments are coming to the rescue. Here are a few snippets:

Municipal leaders attending a U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Chicago on Monday unanimously endorsed Nickels' initiative calling on cities to do their part to stave off climate change. Before the conference vote, 165 mayors from 37 states had individually signed on to the initiative

Q: Is your goal ultimately to put pressure on Washington to adopt ambitious climate-change legislation?

A: We would like to pave the way for the federal government to endorse these efforts. Local government is in many ways much more nimble than other levels of government, so historically one of its roles is to experiment and show that things can work and then have it embraced at state, regional, and ultimately national levels.

The best-case scenario would be to set the stage for our country to not only join the community of nations in this effort, but lead the community of nations. Because Kyoto is only a beginning. It is really an order of magnitude short of what will be necessary this century to stem global warming and ultimately climate disruption.

It's a good read. So go on--read the whole thing.