Oh, sure, you might see an occasional pick ribbon sticker for a breast cancer survivor or something, but the invasion of Iraq and its yellow “Support the Troops” ribbons really ginned things up.
Meanwhile, some drivers, mainly but not only SUV owners, think they can buy themselves out of the consequences of global warming.
But many people believe a few dollars on a sticker can indeed buy social redemption, as this New York Times story about carbon offset bumper stickers illustrates.
Take Biff Cuthbert. Running an organic clam farm for a few years taught him all about being green. But when he recently needed a new vehicle to haul musical equipment for his folk band, as well as his two Akita dogs, Mr. Cuthbert ignored his environmental conscience and bought a cream-colored 2004 Land Rover, which gets 12 miles to the gallon.
Feeling a pang of conscience about driving such a gas-guzzler, Mr. Cuthbert paid $79.95 to Terrapass.com, a group that helps finance non-polluting solar, wind and methane-driven energy projects. In exchange, he got a sticker for his windshield verifying that he is offsetting some of the 16,766 pounds of carbon dioxide his Land Rover will emit this year.
"It rounds the edges off of the guilt a little bit, I guess," said Mr. Cuthbert, 62, of Guilford, Conn. "It's a little like having your cake and eating it too," Mr. Cuthbert said.
Web sites like terrapass.com, carbonfund.org, nativeenergy.com and self.org focus on automobile emissions because drivers can become aware of their carbon footprint every time they fill up. An average car produces about 10,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.
What this is NOT, contrary to the mass media, is a way of buying oneself out, or of assuaging, one’s guilt over failure to actually do something concrete in either instance. Rather, in my opinion, it’s a form of intellectual and moral laziness.
It’s intellectual laziness for refusing to brainstorm what one might actually do to “support the troops” or produce less global greenhouse gas emissions. Beyond that, it’s moral laziness, above all for having some suspicion of what an appropriate action might be, prior to any brainstorming, but refusing to take that action.
Let’s take the carbon offsets first.
Basically, this is a rationalization for allowing oneself to continue to drive an SUV. Really, if you need that much room, there’s the option of a minivan which gets 50-100 percent better gas mileage. And, with sliding second-row doors and large rear lift-hatch doors, minivans are actually easier to load and unload than SUVs.
As for towing, sure, front-drive minivans don’t have the same torque as rear-drive SUVs. But, rear-drive fullsize vans do, and they still get better gas mileage than fullsize SUVs.
But, minivans, let alone fullsize vans, aren’t “cool.” So, the intellectually and morally lazy spend more on an SUV than on a van, and then spend $79 a year on a cheap bumper sticker to pretend to really be doing something about the environment.
Ditto, in spades, for the “Support the Troops” ribbons.
Have you even written a letter to an individual soldier, let alone indicated your willingness to actually sacrifice?
Would you support a tax hike or a budget cut sufficient to pay for this war, rather than making its costs part of a $500 million a year federal budget deficit? Would you support gasoline rationing, especially as prices continue to soar? To connect with the other theme here, would you get serious about driving your SUV less, if you own one?
Would you support a young relative of yours joining the military, knowing more troops are needed in Iraq? If someone in your family actually talks about signing up, would you try to keep others from talking him or her out of it?
A fair chunk of people who could be defined, if they were more politically active, as “liberal hawks,” have these ribbon magnets. So, too, do many “moderate squishes” and “undifferentiated blobs.” This is not just a phenomenon of “run Bush up the flagpole and salute” conservatives.
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