It's Great to be Green

The City of Columbia is going green (The State, January 20). Mayor Bob Coble will drive a City-owned hybrid car in order to “convey how serious [the City] is about protecting the environment.” The City has also joined the Cool Cities Campaign, a Sierra Club program which attempts to reduce global warming by turning Cities’ green commitments into action.
Our proposal is to be a part of that. First, please be clear, we want to do it in a way that saves money -- our goal is to prove that green and smart go together. If we really agree that there will soon be requirements to stop dumping fertilizer ingredients in the Congaree River, then we believe we are offering the least expensive way of doing that. We do not have to consider the general goodness of cleaning the water, the restored bird and animal habitats, the lowered urban temperature, the potential new parklands and walking trails, or the reduced greenhouse gases. If going green were the total goal, then these things alone might be enough to make the proposal worthwhile. After all, when you do those things you get a cleaner environment, more tourists and better recreation for your citizens, and those are legitimate government activities too. But all we are proposing here is a way to save the City and its taxpayers some "green" of their own, all the other "green" benefits just flow from that (no pun intended, I promise).