Flourishing

A couple of hours ago I was writing a tweet about almost being hit by a Toyota Langcruiser (the irony) while riding my bike through a parking lot when I noticed one by FC08. Check it out here. It’s a friday afternoon and I’ve got a couple of things to tie up before calling it a day, so it seemed like a perfect time to follow that URL down an electronic rabbit trail.

It led me to Cooling Creation, a site dedicated to offering concrete actions we can all do to lower our impact on the environment. Just click on the appropriate box and you’ll be guided through a series of options you can take to reducing your carbon footprint: drive fewer miles; ride a bike more; buy an energy efficient fridge; kill your SUV. The site then emails them to you so that you don’t conveniently forget later on when you need a cup of coffee from Starbucks and the 95 degree temperature makes $4/gal gas seem reasonable, if it means you can stay in air-conditioning a little longer.

It also gives you the option of making a tax-deductible contribution of $99 to essentially offset the cost of your carbon usage. I’m not really sure what this actually means so before I even think about whipping out the old Visa checkcard, I’m going to do some research.

I’m willing to drive less, ride my bike more, and even to get a smaller car (if I can afford it), but despite my concern for the environment I’m not quite at the place where I can give some random website $99 to atone for my carbon usage, even the carbon usage coming from my use of a print Bible. I’m serious.