Green Dan Looking for Houses in Manhattan

I like Dan Garodnick, so this is not really a knock on Councilman Dan, but I have to say I found Dan's latest newsletter rather amusing. It's his "green" newsletter and touts the advantages of going green and explains how New Yorkers can go green. The problem is that most of us in Manhattan are limited by how far green we can go. We certainly can't install solar power on our houses--because we don't have houses. Yes, most Manhattanites live in apartment buildings, as I'm sure Dan realizes. So what's that diagram of a nice suburban house and a full page commentary on turning your house green doing in Dan's newsletter to Manhattanites? And why is Dan wasting a valuable resource on this, like paper, which mandated that some poor tree be cut down in some forest, probably in Brazil, probably by some cheap, malnourished labor force?

Going green is the latest fad. Going green may or may not work to protect the environment, but surely there are a lot of upstart businesses looking to make gold when the government pushes green and offers monetary advantages to do so. These business may go bust in ten years, but what the hell. Just like the boom of the dot com companies in the 1990s, these green companies see good and fast money to be made, so they are jumping on board. The quicker they can get on, the more gold they receive.

For landlords, like Tishman Speyer, going green may just be another way to lower costs for themselves and screw tenants in the process through MCIs and a reduction of efficient services. Going green will probably wind up costing the consumer more and the results won't be as good as getting by the old-fashioned way. Those CFL bulbs, for instance, do not shine as bright as regular bulbs--and they are a terrible environmental pollutant because of the mercury they contain. But they save energy and now are the offical light source of Stuy Town and Peter Cooper kitchens and bathrooms. (Hmm, I wonder if Tishman Speyer is using them in their new leasing office or in the Oval Essentials???)

Dan's green newsletter is toned in nice green colors. (Is using color environmentally safe? Surely it must be more expensive than printing something in black and white. Oh, I forgot, we the taxpayer is paying for this newsletter.)

You undoubtedly have gotten Dan's newsletter in your mailbox today or will be getting it next week. There are five nice photos of Dan, outside and inside the newsletter. Thankfully he's a fairly handsome guy, so no problems there. And, yes, there's that diagram of that suburban house, a house that I've yet to see in Manhattan.

The environmentally conscious Dan recommends that you recycle his newspaper. (The paper doesn't seem to be printed on recycled paper itself.) I think by recycling, he means we should throw it into the appropriate recycle bins in our buildings, rather than pass it around. I'm sorry, Dan, but I personally can't be bothered. Down the chute it goes, in the hopes that Tishman Speyer will be slapped with a fine for non-compliance of recycling laws. You see, we have some problems here in Stuy Town/Peter Cooper, and payback is always a pleasurable bitch.