By Cecilia Vega
San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is in the nation's capital this week, where he is meeting with some of the biggest names in the Democratic Party to talk up the city's myriad efforts to combat global warming before he heads off to Switzerland to attend the prestigious World Economic Forum. Newsom spent Tuesday on Capitol Hill, where he plugged the city's universal health care program during a meeting with Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and the city's environmental initiatives in a meeting with Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

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By David Smith
San Francisco Examiner

Green is the color of choice lately for Mayor Gavin Newsom, who unveiled Wednesday yet another effort to make The City environmentally friendly. Newsom proposed a new green building ordinance that would apply to new commercial and residential development as well as renovations to existing buildings. The green building proposal would impose stringent environmental standards on new construction and renovation to current buildings, according to Newsom. The standards would increase every year through 2012, when The City hopes to have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent of 1990 levels, according to a press release from his office. Read more »

By Lisa Leff
Associated Press

Mayor Gavin Newsom plans to ask voters next year to approve a "carbon tax" on businesses that he says would provide a financial incentive for conserving energy and motivating workers to use public transportation. The ballot measure would increase the city's 5 percent commercial utilities tax by an as-yet-undetermined amount to encourage energy-saving steps by hotels, offices and other nonresidential buildings, Newsom said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. To keep the higher rates from becoming an economic drag on the city, the initiative would carry a corresponding decrease in the 1.5 percent payroll tax on for-profit businesses in San Francisco, according to the mayor. Read more »

By Tamara Barak
San Francisco Examiner

Combining the fight against global warning with a Web-based community is a match made in the Bay Area. Although EarthLab.com was born in Seattle, local residents are flocking to it in record numbers since its launch on July 7, in conjunction with the Live Earth concert. The green-focused Web site, which is unique in its ability to calculate the environmental footprint and carbon output from each individual and compare scores across regions or zip codes, has attracted 38,000 users from the Bay Area in less than two months, said site founder Duane Dahl. Read more »

By Jared Blumenfeld, Director, SF Department of the Environment
Susan Leal, General Manager, SF Public Utilities Commission
Originally Published in the San Francisco Chronicle

San Franciscans and other Bay Area residents enjoy some of the nation's highest quality drinking water, with pristine Sierra snowmelt from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir as our primary source. Every year, our water is tested more than 100,000 times to ensure that it meets or exceeds every standard for safe drinking water. And yet we still buy bottled water. Why? Maybe it's because we think bottled water is cleaner and somehow better, but that's not true. The federal standards for tap water are higher than those for bottled water. Read more »

By Elizabeth Ridlington, Policy Analyst, Frontier Group 
Rob Sargent, Energy Program Director, Environment California

Rising global temperatures, unpredictable weather and alarming scientific predictions have led to increasing public concern about the impacts of global warming on the environment, health and society. But while the Bush administration continues to resist efforts to reduce global warming pollution, many states are taking effective actions to address the threat—including the adoption of the “Clean Cars Program,” which sets limits on global warming pollution from cars, light trucks and SUVs. The global warming benefit will be significant. Read more »

By Rob Black

Currently, San Francisco has a stated goal of 5.5 acres of park or open space for every 1,000 residents.  This goal represents about half the 10 acres per 1,000 residents recommended by the National Recreation and Park Association.  In neighborhoods like the South of Market and the Inner Mission, areas receiving thousands of new housing units, there are only 1.8 acres of parks per 1,000 residents.  As new units are built, the proportion of residents to park space continues to decline.  If we want these new and existing neighborhoods to thrive, we must plan for and invest in more parks and open space now.  If we wait, the costs will be too prohibitive, the neighborhoods too dense, and the opportunity for a greener, healthier community will be lost. Read more »