Do not relent, TCT editors! There is entirely too much green-washing going on, and you are right to expose it.

Take, for example, the mayor's braggadocio about the Natural Step framework. While Mayor Dave Cieslewicz figures out how to close the garage door on the bus barn, his planners and engineers are busy paving over the countryside.

In addition to amnesia about his last job, apparently the mayor missed the fundamental principle of the Natural Step: "People will avoid systematically encroaching upon nature by destroying the habitat of other species." That's enviro-speak for: End sprawl!

The city's latest sprawl project paves over a trout stream! That's right, the plan for a far north side subdivision (Pumpkin Hollow) cuts off water recharge areas necessary for healthy flow and temperature of an acclaimed stream restoration project. To use the Natural Step language, this poor planning will "destroy the habitat of other species." In this case, the project will be destroying habitat of the classic indicator species of a healthy Upper Midwestern environment -- trout.

And this isn't about just one little stream. Token Creek is probably the healthiest tributary flowing into the Yahara chain. By degrading this stream, we degrade all of our lakes.

The county executive hasn't done much better. Even as Kathleen Falk brags about the crumbs for land conservation funding, she rubber-stamps every McMansion that comes her way.

She's never seen a highway she hasn't caved to. The result? Dane County is the fifth-worst metropolitan area in terms of large-lot sprawl across the countryside.

Keep stickin' it to 'em! The health of our city and county depends on it!

Michael Barrett, Madison