Nickels Painted Green In Rolling Stone Mag on Salon.com

Greg Nickels made Rolling Stone. Is his new disc out? No. Is he being heralded as one of our country's leading environmentalists? He is! He's one of the "Warriors and Heros: Twenty-five leaders who are fighting to stave off the planetwide catastrophe." Uh, no mention of his significant role in the killing of the green line, but the magazine loved his motions towards Kyoto. Seattlest had an opinion of the mayor's Kyoto commitment back in February:

Nods were also made in the direction of the Kyoto Protocol during the speech and Nickels announced a future announcement regarding the city's plans to address global warming. This is an issue that the City Council has been working on for years, without, it must be said, much attention from the mayor. Prepare for another unfundable proclamation from the mayor addressing city environmental efforts.

Seattlest is of the opinion Nickels is priming himself for national politics and a lot of rhetoric about Kyoto will go a long way towards greening his image outside of the city.

Seattlest would have recommended a different local politician had we been consulted for this piece. We have to say that we buy into Senator Maria Cantwell and her environmental convictions wholeheartedly, wheras we will always suspect the mayor of being primarily politically motivated. Check out Cantwell's radio address from this week. It is cool that a city leader was chosen for this list, however, particularly one who champions urban density as well as sustainability so for that our hat is officially off to the mayor. We're looking forward to see what Nickels and his merry band of green mayors can accomplish.

From the Rolling Stone profile:

When it comes to global warming, cities are both the problem and the solution. They account for seventy-eight percent of all climate-warming emissions -- but they may possess enough purchasing power to actually alter the weather. "We buy car fleets, buses, construction equipment, computer systems, light bulbs," says Nickels, whose city's economy is larger than Ireland's. "If we invest in efficient technologies, that can have huge implications for climate change."

Update: We first spotted this item on Sound Politics who, of course, sold this as a Rolling Stone story instead of recognizing that it's from Salon.com and reproduced in Rolling Stone. We actually read Salon and we think they're gaining some credibility on the environment. We don't actually read Rolling Stone. Anyway, we apologize for being led astray by Sound Politics and we suggest you head to Salon to read the full text and the accompanying Al Gore Essay. An Al Gore essay? No wonder Sound Politics pretended this wasn't a Salon item. We have no excuse.