SF Mayor on Green Tech

March 6th, 2008

San Frisco is a city that on being one of America’s Greenest cities coming in at #2 in CNET’s recent study. Mayor Gavin Newson recently answered questions about his plans for the city that include being carbon-neutral by 2020 by retooling laws and taxes related to energy, transportation, buildings, wildlife, waste, and environmental justice in a Q&A.

It is an interesting take on what many like to call the Hippie Culture. Those that care about the environment, and believe that we can make significant differences to our planet for future generations. Be it with recycling, alternative fuel options, used cisco products rather than new, or just plain planting more trees.

For someone who takes being “green” seriously one of his answers to what he does personally:

What kinds of “green” things do you do in your life?

My last car was an electric car, I was one of those EV-1 sad souls. We watched it get stolen, or taken back, or returned to its owner GM, and destroyed.

My next new car is the Tesla, the new green one. I can’t believe I spent that much money on a car. I did it purely for the technology, out of appreciation…I’m not sure if I want to be seen driving it.

The house is energy-efficient. I got rid of water bottles not just for the city–and plastic bags–but I do that at home…I buy offsets and couldn’t figure out where they were going so we set up a local offset plan, to give it back to the city.