Focus the 'Tos

Today is "Focus the Nation," a national teach-in on global warming. It comes amidst a lot of exciting progress on climate change at UCLA Law. Last week's law review symposium highlighted some of the best idea for addressing the problem. The school announced that it had received a $5 million gift to open the country's first center for climate change law. A group of students has embarked on an effort to personally comply with the Kyoto Protocol. And I even got to meet one of the impostor Jonathan Wieners. (Details to follow in another post).

But this blog is not about the nation, the globe, or even UCLA Law. It is about the 'Tos, which joined the party last week.

Thanks to the efforts of Kacey Fitzpatrick and the other folks behind Cool Los Altos, our city has pledged to meet the Kyoto Protocol by 2012. This seems like it will require rethinking, among other things, how much we want to continue use free public parking to subsidize driving. I'm not optimistic that we will necessarily pull it off -- at least so long as council member and blog whipping boy Ron Packard believes that the only thing Los Altos should do about the great challenge of our time is promulgate weak revisions to the building code. But at least it will be nice to know that we inspired Iraq.