Rocky from the Rockies Bashes Bush

By Floy Lilley, J.D.
December 14, 2004

"Despite the abandonment of U.S. national leadership, Salt Lake is allowing NO excuse for our not enforcing the Kyoto Protocol," boasted Mayor Russ 'Rocky' Anderson at a side event today. Unlike the rest of us who wore simple UNFCC ribbons around our necks with our ID badges attached, Mayor Rocky wore a bright red ribbon declaring "Yes to Kyoto No to Bush."

Proclaiming that the USA needs new leadership, Mayor Rocky seemed to suggest that it was obvious to him that he was the leadership that the country needed. He afterall had used the world stage of the Olympics in Salt Lake, in 2002, to commit HIS city to the Kyoto emissions targets. He was proudly seeing that HIS city will have accomplished these targets, not by the suggested sluggish 2012, but neatly by next year 2005.

Mayor Rocky was cocky about having defeated automobiles in Salt Lake by a forceful lawsuit based strangely enough on the Clean Water Act. He stopped the creation of a highway. HIS strong leadership sent the clearest message to those who would drive cars that Rocky was not going to let car drivers force HIS city to pave over another green spot just so one driver in one auto could drive into work. That should teach them all what smart growth means.

It may come as no surprise that this side event was brought to us attendees by the same omnipotent and omniscient group that brought us Local Agenda 21 – the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), funded by, what else, USAID.

ICLEI has determined that Agenda 21 carries a bit of baggage, so they now speak of Action 21. The two current chief brainstorms of this old meddling organization are Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) and Target ZerO.

"It's sure better than our national level. We are taking agressive action NOW," declared Bob Price of ICLEI, Berkeley CA. Bob entreated us all to be sure to show up in San Francisco next June while ICLEI hosts World Environment Day.

Who could stand to miss it.