Denver Mayor sketches out "Greenprint" vision. Speech touts trees, hybrids, preschool. John Hickenlooper’s initiative would stretch 20 years into the area’s future. The plan draws praise from industry.

Hybrid vehicles, a million new trees and a 22 percent reduction in water use marked ambitious, long-term initiatives outlined by Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper Wednesday in his State of the City address.

"Greenprint Denver," Hickenlooper said, will impact nearly every city department in an effort to make Denver more sustainable.

"Even if there’s a 2 percent chance that 95 percent of the world’s top climate scientists are right about the dire consequences of global warming, we run the risk of being the first generation in history to leave the next generation a problem for which there is no solution," Hickenlooper said.

To that end, the mayor laid out short-term goals of converting city vehicles to hybrid or bio-diesel, reducing energy use in city buildings each year and building solar and methane power plants by 2007.

By George Merritt
Denver Post Staff Writer

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