Ban Drive Throughs, Save the World?

In yet more news out of Madison, I found this story on Channel 3000.  A member of the planning commission, Eric Sundquist, has floated the idea of banning new drive throughs in Madison as a way to help stem climate change.   No official plan has been proposed yet, and I doubt something like this would ever go through, but it is nice to see someone proposing concrete change to deal with the issue of global warming.  Of course, I don’t know how much of an effect this would have without more data, especially since the plan would only apply to new stores, not existing options.  But it’s an interesting thought nonetheless.

There are a few other articles online that deal with this issue, including “Deadly Ozone from Drive-Thru Mania” and a post at Freakonomics noting that Starbucks is not as green as they like to think due to all of their drive throughs.