Sarasota Livin'

We are back from our trip... from San Francisco to Napa Valley to Sacramento to the Florida Folk Festival to the new Star Wars movie we had a great time .. it will take me a few days to get back in the blogging grove... but is a very news item about city government doing what needs to be done... in San Francisco

Mayors from some of the world's biggest cities are gathering here this week to forge a set of international guidelines for sustainable urban living — billed as a municipal version of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming that the United States never ratified.

The Urban Environmental Accords, to be signed at the United Nations World Environment Day Conference, is the latest example of cities seeking to tackle climate change despite reluctance from their national governments.

"We cannot afford to wait for the state or federal government to do the job. There are too many excuses going around, particularly in this country," said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. "Increasingly, the world will look at mayors to become the stewards of the environment since the vast majority of the pollution comes from cities."

Here is another add on story I just found..

Joel Makower's Sustainable Business Blog has a great story on

Green Jobs, Not Jails

The connection between social inequality and environmental destruction isn’t one made easily by most environmentalists. Sure, they may see a connection between a perceived lack of concern among politicians and corporations about both people and the planet. But that’s usually about it.

Van Jones tells another story. For him, the two are inextricably linked. "Both problems are reaching crisis points," he writes in the Summer 2005 issue of Yes! magazine. "We act as if they are separate. But they are linked -- economically, politically, and morally. The solutions and strategies for each must, therefore, be one."

Last week, during the World Environment Day festivities in San Francisco, the Ella Baker Center, the Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit Jones heads, launched an initiative that attempts to link the two: Reclaim the Future. RTF is envisioned as a think tank and advocacy group representing and empowering ecologically sound, urban entrepreneurs and their local communities. According to the Ella Baker site:

Our goal is to push for public-private-community partnerships endorsing clean, healthy, and economically developed urban environments. The project is devoted to fostering the creation of dignified, clean-energy job opportunities for de-incarcerated individuals and those at risk of encountering the punishment industry.

Or, as Jones puts it: "Green Jobs, Not Jails."