Quien Es Más Verde?

That's the question posed by the Seattle P-I regarding green rock star Mayor Greg Nickels and Kink County Executive Ron Sims. (The King county council legislates for the entire metro area, including the Eastside suburbs of Bellevue and Redmond--home to Microsoft and many of its employees--and is just as powerful a governmental force as the Seattle city council.) Nickels, of course, has been central in the effort to get individual cities in the US to adhere to the greenhouse-reducing principles of the Kyoto Protocol (since the federal government continues to turn a blind eye to it). Nickels' US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement page notes that 224 mayors representing a populace of 43.9 million Americans have signed on.

[Oy vey........ hunky Liverpudlian midfielder Luis Garcia has put the Reds up 2-nil over Chelsea... it's looking doubtful for a Chelsea Double (winning the Premier League and the English FA Cup)]

Sorry... still multitasking. Where was I? Right... And thusly, Nickels has garnered bags of press from national publications like Rolling Stone, Time Magazine, and Vanity Fair (that's Hoss... I mean Nickels in the middle).

[Ooooooohhh... a sparkling Arjen Robben, a second-half substitute (why wasn't he in the first team???) just made a great shot that was equaled by an amazing save by Liverpool keeper Jose Reyna... only 20 minutes left in normal time]

So, onto the comparison. First up, Sims:

[Game on!!!!! Donkey no more, Didier Drogba poaches a goal with his head after a lame header from Liverpool defender Riise (now playing the goat) back to keeper Reyna. And Chelsea have more creativity on the field with sparky midfielder replacements Joe Cole and Damien Duff.]

Sims fought for restrictions on development in the county's rural regions, sparking the ire of countless residents in woodsier communities.
[...]
Other accomplishments cheered by environmentalists include the county's shift to hybrid buses and plant-derived biodiesel in government vehicles. King County pushed a sewage treatment plant that's stirred up loads of controversy, but will clean and reuse millions of gallons of wastewater. The county bought 100,000 acres in the Snoqualmie Tree Farm to be preserved forever as open space.

And just this week, Sims announced plans to dramatically expand bus service. Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gases in the region and improved mass transit is seen as the best way to combat it.

And Nickels?

Nickels, too, has pushed to make government vehicles environmentally sound with more fuel-efficient cars and biodiesel. He's supported Seattle City Light's effort to become "climate neutral," meaning the public utility has no net release of global warming gases. Nickels has worked with a local conservation group to combat invasive weeds choking city parks.

Some environmentalists wish he'd taken a harder stand on regulations to keep development a safe distance from rivers and shorelines in order to keep water clean, yet still they don't knock his overall record.

It really is great to have civic leaders like Nickels and Sims pushing for real solutions to decreasing dependence on oil as well as production of greenhouse gases. But I'm still miffed at Nickels for his role in helping to kill off the monorail project--a long gestating public transportation plan that was long supported by the populace (with several votes in favor). But due to financing problems compounded by lack of support from the Mayor, it died a final death at the polls last November. If Nickels truly wants to be seen as the green mayoral rock star, he needs to pay far more attention to reducing car usage in Seattle (the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions).