Last night I wrote about creating green cities in ways that are more accomplishable and down-to-earth than what we often may think of-- ways that are calling out for some grassroots activism.
Here are a few things I forgot to mention.
-Some might think exemptions from parking meter tickets for electric cars and hybrids might not work out. But, you could just give the exemptions for three or four years, until plenty of people who can afford the cars have bought them. Then you change the law back so that everyone is paying the same tickets again. It wil still have promoted electric vehicles- if there are plenty more of them by the end of the three or four years, they'll be more visible and more mainstream, manufacturers may have been lured into lowering the price, and people who bought them won't get rid of them. They'll keep the cars because they're a good value and good for the environment.
-Windpower on city buildings makes all the more sense because city buildings use so much power. Owning your own electricity-generating windmill for your suburban house doesn’t make so much sense yet because it would take so long for the dollars saved in energy to pay for the cost of the windmill. On top of a city building, it would pay for itself much more quickly.
-There could be municipal, state or federal legislation to try to get every cab to be a hybrid. Off-hours, plenty of cabs might have plenty of time to recharge the batteries. Adding more recharging infrastructure as part of the new requirements could just make it even more feasible. Even if every cab in a city just spends 35 miles on the batteries every day instead of on gas, that's a big accomplishment. Or maybe even put solar cells on the hood of every cab or every bus to run the radio, headlights, etc.
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