Imagine a nonpartisan presidential candidate who lives in a modest house, walks or bicycles around town, mows his own lawn, travels in a 1990s motorhome, and does without air conditioning and TV. Meet "Average Joe" Schriner. Joe explains that his age (52), his height (5'10"), his weight (180 pounds), his yearly income (five digits), his home state (Ohio) and his overall political outlook represent the average American.

Hopefully more than a few Americans were paying attention when the nation's mayors coalesced in February 2005, as the Kyoto Protocol took effect in 141 countries but not the United States.  Under the leadership of Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels the U.S. Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement was implemented.  

The April 3, 2006 edition of Time traces the upshot of this ambitious and ecologically essential undertaking.  Thus far 218 mayors from 39 states representing 44 million Americans have signed on to the Agreement's 12-step program for their own cities to "meet or beat" Kyoto's original target for the U.S.  

This objective involves cutting greenhouse-gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels over the next six years.

Portland, Seattle's neighbor to the south along Interstate 5, assuredly captured Nickels's attention with the head start it achieved in tackling global warming and its effects beginning in 1993.  Emissions had been slashed by 13 percent per capita, partly by building light rail and 730 miles of regional bikeways.