Disptach from Santa Fe

I'm working from Santa Fe this week, where a picture of a Carbonfund.org bumper sticker on a Hummer was plastered across the front page of the local newspaper last week (and where I was a journalist for three years after college).

The headline was "A lighter footprint: the debate over buying carbon credits," but the story really focused on a local Santa Fean who makes it clear she is proud both of her offset purchase from Carbonfund.org and her Hummer. On its face, the Hummer owner would seem to have bought carbon credits for the exact wrong reason, that is, to assuage the guilt from her decision not to drive a more environmentally friendly vehicle.

But much as I personally would like to excoriate all Hummer drivers everywhere, I'm left with the lingering knowledge that her Hummer driving actually isn't all that different in terms of actual climate effect from my flight out to Santa Fe this week. Her Hummer driven for a year and my plane flight actually emit roughly the same amount of carbon dioxide.

In a way, the example of a Hummer driver only brings into focus those things in all our lives that we cannot do without. The Hummer driver is quoted as saying she "feels safe driving in the snow with the children in her day-care business and armored against drunken drivers" - and there are a lot of drunk drivers in Santa Fe.

Meanwhile, I don't want to give up my visit to Santa Fe, while the author of the article confessed to me he feels guilty having to commute an hour to work by car from Albuquerque every day. My dad, who read the article, was speaking negatively of the Hummer driver until I pointed out to him that he doesn't recycle anything - the city of Espanola, where he lives, doesn't offer recycling. Even Buddhist monks have a carbon footprint (and a sizable one), as my colleague William wrote about earlier. So much as I would like to judge the Hummer driver, I'd also have to judge myself, my family, and the Buddhist monk.

On a related note, I was quoted in the accompanying story on certification.