How should Boulder best reduce GHG's?

Overview

The city of Boulder has embarked on a sustainable energy program focused on the reduction of green house gas emissions (GHG), energy use and global warming effects. Boulder's city council has taken the position as fact that GHG emissions cause global warming. Council has therefore directed the city staff to design a program that will achieve the Kyoto protocol target of reducing local emissions to a level of 7% below 1990 levels by 2012. A growing number of scientists believe that GHG emissions cause global warming. Many of them support the city's program. But there are also many scientists who believe that the present warming of our planet results from normal historical cycles; and that spending large amounts of our resources on GHG represents overmedication, is wasteful and unnecessary, and in fact can be damaging to our economy over time. In our view however, regardless of which side of the global warming debate you are on, it is clear that reducing emissions of carbon into our atmosphere is a worthy goal. Further, whatever reductions in GHG we achieve will have the co-salutary effect of reducing our dependence on other nations for our energy needs. However, a more important aspect of this debate is how the city could accomplish its goals, and how much it should cost.