Seattle Mayor Paul Schell announced at a July 24 press conference that his city would abide by the Kyoto Protocol, whether or not the U.S. government does. “We are sending a message to the federal administration that it is time to act, just like the rest of the world.”
Reporting on the mayor’s announcement, Cybercast News Service observed the mayor neglected to mention “Seattle already has an advantage over the rest of the nation, given its heavy reliance on hydro-electric dams.”
Added Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, “Seattle is in a unique position . . . to rely on hydropower . . . which does not emit what are so-called greenhouse gases. . . . Take this to Detroit and see what happens. There is no energy-intensive manufacturing [Seattle] participates in, and that’s when we’re talking about the job cuts and the pain.”
Moreover, the same anti-market environmentalists who praise Seattle’s CO2 efforts fight tooth-and-nail to prevent the construction of new hydo-electric dams elsewhere in the country. Hydro-electric dams, they argue, are destructive to river ecosystems, particularly endangered fish species.
