In an opinion piece for today's LJS, Francis Moul proposes a green 2015 vision of sorts. Mr. Moul is no newby when it comes to environmental issues, so I read the piece with interest. Then I read that Mr. Moul wants to eliminate all gas-powered vehicles from Downtown by 2010. He calls such a move "simple, but traumatic". Traumatic indeed. Talk about a good way to destroy nearly all economic activity in the area, promote sprawl and, ironically, encourage even more driving.
Many of Mr. Moul's other ideas are just as unrealistic. Moving sidewalks in our climate? If he can, in our climate, (a) get people to stand on the things and (b) get the things to work reliably, then more power to him. He even goes so far as to claim (without explaining why) there will be less crime in a green Lincoln's future. I honestly can't tell if Mr. Moul is actually serious about this stuff, or if he's just trying to stir the pot a bit. It's tempting to brush aside Mr. Moul's pie-in-the-sky vision as the rantings of a tree-hugging kook. Many of you already have, while others of you are drafting a fiery comment to condemn my use of the term "tree-hugging". Whatever you think of the piece's reasonableness, I suppose it raises some discussion points.
First, Lincoln certainly could be more "green", and a "2015 Vision-like" plan wouldn't hurt. If somebody wants to jump in and build support for such a thing, more power to them. But good luck getting much buy-in from Lincolnites for anything but the most basic greenification efforts. Lincolnites will help pick up trash, and you might even talk us into recycling and composting more of our trash. Beyond that? The image of Sisyphus comes to mind.
Second, Mr. Moul's goal of making Lincoln "unique" isn't such a bad thing. He wants us to be the greenest city; others want us to be the most wired (or wireless) city, or the city with the best recreational opportunities, or whatever. It could be pretty neat having a national reputation -- as opposed to a single ranking from some magazine or thinktank nobody has ever heard of -- for something like that. Perhaps it's worth having a discussion about what we want to be the best at. Or maybe Lincolnites are perfectly content having Lincoln just be a nice place to live.
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