Friday, July 13, 2007 | RE: “Sprawl, Growth Targets of Global Warming Fight:”
This is an excellent article. I hope and pray for the sake of our region that San Diego eliminates the “weasle” language and puts teeth into its General Plan development guidelines.
They hopefully will not go down the path of Chula Vista, which requires green building only for their own buildings. “Encouragement” resulted in only 600 of the 16,000 homes built in Chula Vista in the past few years where green building principles were deemed “feasible.”
“Required” is the word needed or a large portion of our bay front will be under water in the near future. Without requirements, specific goals (which are also needed) are rather useless. Take Chula Vista for example, which likes to boast how it signed Kyoto and pledged to reduce green house gas production by 20 percent. A recent report shows that it has gone up 35 percent. (The result of unrestricted growth, which the city plans to make even worse.)
Individuals can not do this alone. Governments must require solar, tankless water heaters, high LEED standards for all buildings, much improved public transit and a huge increase in fuel efficiency among other things. You can’t keep adding people and cars and expect reductions, unless high green standards are mandatory.