Better to shake your fist in the wind...

...than sit out in the acid rain. (?)

Um, that is, in the good news column, a group of 132 mayors has gotten together to try to enforce the Kyoto accord rules on a local level, fighting against change in the climate that are already having noticeable effects in their regions (as well as because, you know, they believe the scientists when they say that global warming will become a grave problem without intervention).

The mayors, from cities as liberal as Los Angeles and as conservative as Hurst, Tex., represent nearly 29 million citizens in 35 states, according to Mayor Nickels's office. They are pledging to have their cities meet what would have been a binding requirement for the nation had the Bush administration not rejected the Kyoto Protocol: a reduction in heat-trapping gas emissions to levels 7 percent below those of 1990, by 2012.

On Thursday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg brought New York City into the coalition, the latest Republican mayor to join.
. . .
The coalition is not the first effort by local leaders to take up the initiative on climate change. California, under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, is moving to limit carbon dioxide emissions, and Gov. George A. Pataki of New York, also a Republican, has led efforts to reduce power plant emissions in the Northeast. But the coalition is unusual in its open embrace of an international agreement that the Bush administration has spurned, Mayor Nickels's office said, and is significant because cities are huge contributors to the nation's emission of heat-trapping gases.

These mayors disagree with administration arguments that new restrictions will have adverse economic impact -- in fact, some of them think their cities' very existence is in question (due to flooding, hurricanes, or drying up of farmland). Also noteworthy is that many of them are ramping up their reliance on wind and other renewable energy sources in order to meet their own goals. Inspiring.

Best quote of the article? Score one for framing here:

Jerry Ryan, the Republican mayor of Bellevue, Neb., ... described himself as a strong Bush supporter, but said he felt that the president's approach to global warming should be more like his approach to terrorism.

"You've got to ask, 'Is it remotely possible that there is a threat?' " he said. "If the answer is yes, you've got to act now."

Yeehah!

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