SOCIAL: me, you, and driving

[Amandeep Jawa]

Friends -

I'm on the verge of tears at the moment (and it's not about Bob - yippee!) - it looks like despite BP's claims about 5K barrels a day - the spill is probably between 40K to 120K barrels a day. That means on the conservative end of the spectrum we are dropping an Exxon Valdez oil spill into the Gulf EVERY THREE DAYS.  Goodbye Caribbean?

As an Americans, this is all our faults.  Though BP has been disgustingly horrible through this crisis they are just following the money and that money comes from you and me.  

I'd like to ask you to do something that I try to do (and I know I have become a joke to some of you about this) - but when ever you try to take a trip in your car or in a plane or anywhere - please ask yourself - can I do this a better way?

I think flying is the hardest to escape - and I try to do that somewhat less than I would otherwise.  But driving is an obvious target.  When you are about to get in your car, ask yourself - can I walk, or take Muni, or BART - or bike!  I don't mean to sound preachy - I'm on the hook here as well, and am a bit of a hypocrite myself* - but it is something I try to do - and I'm not perfect or even particularly good myself - but I'd like to ask us all to try and improve.

'deep


*I just looked into train tix for my potential upcoming flight to Minnesota - doesn't look like Amtrak goes there.


.ps
Tom passed along some good stuff:

Maybe we should do the Car Free Challenge - Sounds cool & we might even do well (they encourage everyone to do it - including us car free types)
http://www.transformca.org/car-free-challenge/how-it-works

And another good one is the 10:10 Challenge out of the UK
They're working on getting folks to reduce their carbon emissions by 10% during 2010. The campaign focuses on different activities each month. The web sites have some good carbon footprint calculators, carbon reduction tips, and so on:

Official site: http://www.1010global.org/
The Guardian's 10:10 site: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/10-10



----------------------------------
Amandeep Jawa
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deep AT deeptrouble DOT com
937 Valencia St.
San Francisco, CA 94110-2320

personal: http://www.deeptrouble.com
political: http://www.sflcv.org



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