Sister Cities, Kyoto-Wilmette

So Wilmette's village board, or at least the administrative committee, is meeting to consider that our village adopt the Kyoto Protocol. What will this mean for our small corner of the planet?

Perhaps we can draw comfort from this Time magazine article?

Although less likely than their samurai forebears to enforce conservation with decapitation, Japan's modern leaders do take a frugal approach to energy.

Perhaps not.

Will our backyard Webers become endangered species?

Will our much-loved ye olde fireplaces be blocked up?

Must we replace our leaded glass windows with sleek, contemporary energy efficient ones?

Or maybe they'll come in and time our showers like that Ed guy on TV, or mandate solar panels on all our roofs.

And how about fashion police along with the thermometer monitors:

Mindful of Kyoto, the government has lately shifted the focus to cutting greenhouse gases. That gave birth to the Cool Biz policy in 2005, under which offices save energy by keeping summer temperatures at a stifling 82.4°F (28°C). To beat the heat, salarymen are told to doff their black suits in favor of light colors and open collars. The result made the Prime Minister occasionally look as if he were addressing parliament from a beach in Waikiki, but at least Cool Biz had more style than a similar Japanese idea from the 1970s: the short-sleeved business suit.

Village board meetings would be much more entertaining.

But why bother with all these meetings no one knows about anyway, the eco-warriors at the NY Times have the solution for our northern hemisphere---cut down heat-absorbing ground cover. Apparently, planting trees around where we live just makes global warming worse, it's a "dangerous illusion". (Note nature's heat-reflecting cap on my Webers---apparently Iceland is having no trouble meeting the targets.)

Or we can think again.

UPDATE: A provocative eco-film, (earlier post Idylls of the Eco-Kings), called Mine Your Own Business.

UPDATE: Skeptical weatherman takes on the PC types at the Weather Channel, "I do not know of a single TV meterologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype." And while the east coast has had warmer than usual weather, California and Texas have had unusually cold weather.