At the West Coast Green conference starting today, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom touted his city's success in going green, but vented that the accomplishments to date don't cut it. Newsom rattled off a deluge of sound bites about the need to do more in combating climate change, even in his progressive town.

"I'm disappointed in what has been done so far.. It doesn't add up to much.... We need an order of magnitude change... I'm tired of creeping mediocrity and failing more efficiently."

Talk about a reality check to kick off a conference.. Wahoo!

Not surprisingly the partisan mayor took a few jabs at the lack of green initiatives by the Bush Adminstration. Since the Kyoto Protocol's requirement for reducing emissions was too tough for Bush, "we decided to double that."

Next he quoted some of San Francisco's recent achievements:

-- 20 percent of all cabs run on alternative fuels, moving to 100 percent in 2 years -- Starting in January, every buidling must be LEED certified, and by 2012 every development must be LEED Gold certified, -- 2/3 of muni buses are running on alt fuels -- 20 percent less CO2 emissions (based on 1990 rates) for the city 2012 -- 69 percent of demolition material from buildings is diverted instead of going into landfill

The Mayor wasn't overstating by much that when it comes to green building "Everything is being done at the city level."

He concluded by telling his constitutions to keep the city government on track.

"You have to hold our feet to the fire. "[We're] not close to where we need to be.. The worst thing is to have modest goals that we reach... I'd much rather have audacious goals that we fall short of."