Have you noticed the improvement in the City of Chandler’s image?

When Chandler opened its new $6 million fire administration headquarters last fall, it joined a growing list of “green” buildings designed to reduce energy use and improve the city’s image. It thereby became the first project to be completed since the Chandler City Council mandated that all city buildings conform to LEED Silver certification standards as specified by the U.S. Green Building Council.

We’re all for making government efficient, but it shouldn’t take an act of the “green god” to make it happen. Honesty, ethics, and the responsibility of cutting costs come with the trust given to government leaders by the citizens.

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of greenspeak

Is there any escape from the Green Phobia gripping the land? Doomsday alarmists are tripping over each other to “go green.” It’s nauseating nonsense. It’s religious fanaticism.

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing codes that voices never shared
No one dared
Disturb the sound of greenspeak

In the Old Pueblo of Tucson, the “Cat Tran” has certainly gone green – making 44 percent of all trips to the University of Arizona campus “environmentally friendly.” Woe to the other 56 percent! Woe to them.

Even the Arizona fashion business is getting into the incredible greenness of life in the 21^st century, showing the “Who’s who” and “How-to” of being green: “EcoDivas is a multi-layered concept that highlights the fabulous sides of being Eco and Divalicious.”

“Fools,” said I, “you do not know
Greenspeak like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of greenspeak

In Casa Grande, Frito-Lay snack production takes its eco inspiration from “going green.” Al Halvorsen, energy and utilities manager, told the Arizona Republic, “We didn’t just watch Al Gore’s movie and wake up to climate change.” Frito-Lay is especially proud of its sun chip tie-in to solar power.

The Arizona Green City Guide site is the “Internet portal to everything Green in Arizona and your connection to the largest Internet network of Green-minded people in all 50 states! Your one-stop Internet resource center for Green news, technology and happenings across the continent.”

And the people bowed and prayed
To the green gods they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of greenspeak

Tourism is out, but Open Road Tours, a Phoenix and Flagstaff, Arizona based tour company, has replaced it with “ecotourism” by “going green.”

City and county governments throughout the state have set comprehensive environmental policies by adopting green initiatives. The savings they claim by “going green” do not seem to result in the lowering of taxes upon their beleaguered citizens.

Even the Sonoran Desert has “gone green.”

Can green cars and green bread be far behind?

Maybe. But the evidence is in, and Arizonans are in a frenzy to feed the ravenous appetite of the “green god.” Lest they be left behind and rendered irrelevant by the green powers that be.