How Green is Your County?

You may have read how Montgomery County recently adopted a plan called a Greenprint to reduce greenhouse gases in the county by 51 percent by 2025.

It would do that by trying to make more use of wind-generated and solar electricity, planting trees, preserving farmland, and giving more support to mass-transit projects, among other things.

However, the plan has no teeth. The only one the county government can order around is itself. There's nothing in Greenprint that would require a Norristown resident, for example, to buy solar energy instead of energy from oil or coal.

The plan relies mainly on county government becoming a role model for all residents and local governments, exhorting and inspiring them.

Do you think officials in Chester County, which often seems like a hotbed of environmentalism, should try a similar plan?

Will measures like this work without any enforcement mechanism, or do they need some kind of incentives or threat of sanctions to succeed?

Or would everyone be better off letting free-market factors and resourceful entrepreneurs come up with solutions to global warming and the energy crisis?

Let us know your opinion by Tuesday, in 200 words or less, by e-mailing to

» READ MORE: chesterletters@phillynews.com

. Include a home address and day and evening phone numbers. Writers' phone numbers, street addresses and e-mail addresses will not be published. Only e-mails can be considered.