Top 10 Green U.S. Cities and...,um,... Fort Worth
After suffering through another unhealthy ozone day in Fort Worth, Texas, I turned on Turner Classic Movies to watch the old classic western movie, Dodge City. When a group of pioneers first arrived in Dodge City, one of them said,"Well, well. So this is Dodge City, huh? Sort of smells like Fort Worth, don't it."
Naturally, he was referring to the sweet perfume of the sacred icon of Cowtown, not the odor of hydrocarbons.
Many non-Texans don't realize that, before 2005 when the Barnett Shale was just cow-pie in the sky, Fort Worth was NOT and had NEVER had been an oil & gas town. No way! They call it Cowtown for a reason.
Times have changed.
In a 2009 report, Fort Worth (Tarrant County) received a grade of "F" from the American Lung Association with ozone data collected before the urban gas drilling boom. (The forecast for 2010 is grim.) In only three years Cowtown has nearly caught up with Houston in the number of unhealthy (Yellow, Orange, Red & Purple Alert) ozone days per year.
Because of sharply increased emissions from Barnett Shale gas drilling operations (to hell with the TCEQ), Fort Worth will never make the Top 10 list of green cities. Quite the contrary.
However, elected officials in north Texas can and should minimize the damage by intensifying green initiatives. As you will see in the link below, cities like Chicago, Austin and San Francisco have already shown how it's done.
Fort Worth's mayor advocated for urban drilling, he shamelessly cashed in on a personal level and he set a poor example for other cities to follow. For those reasons alone,
Fort Worth has a moral obligation to the people of north Texas to use ALL gas drilling revenue to go above and beyond the green examples set by the progressive cities who made the list.
Not all of us can afford to get the hell out of Dodge (or bail the shale, as we say in Cowtown), just yet.
Mayor Moncrief and others claim they are saving the revenue for a rainy day. That day arrived when Dirty Ol' Town permitted the first gas well.
Check out the Top 10 Green US cities, here:
http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/travel/photos/top-10-green-us-cities/12466
http://www.carbonconscious.us/blog/?p=223
DY
Don Young
FWCanDo
P.O. Box 470041
Fort Worth, TX 76147
"God bless Fort Worth, Texas. Help us save some of it."
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