Grist.org, a “green news” web site, lists the nation’s 15 “greenest” mayors. Guess what? Pat McCrory isn’t on that list. He could have been, considering that he was the chair of the US Mayors’ environmental committee, which drafted the US Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement. That agreement is a pledge, which has now been signed by more than 900 mayors, including 39 in North Carolina, stating that the cities will work toward cutting greenhouse gases to pre-1990 levels in order to reduce global warming. McCrory, though, refused to sign his own group’s agreement. Why? Because it doesn’t recommend nuclear power as an alternative energy source (he was employed by Duke Energy at the time, and we all know how eager Pat has always been to embrace his inner corporate puppet) — oh, and because the agreement noted that there just may be a problem with global warming, a statement McCrory found to be “too political.” So, no, Mayor Pat won’t be joining the list of green mayors from Atlanta, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Fairfield, IA., and the others. After all, Charlotte wouldn’t want to jump the gun here. Just because those environmental wacko radicals in Gastonia, Salisbury and Indian Trail have signed on to the climate protection agreement, that doesn’t mean the city that was once the leading progressive force in the region should do it, too. See an interactive map of US cities that have signed on to the agreement here. See the story on the nation’s greenest mayors here.
This article appears in May 5-12, 2009.
