photo credit: Ford Racing

My local newspaper printed a letter to the editor yesterday from a reader complaining about the amount of fuel that automotive racing events like the Indy 500 waste. That got me to thinking. I happen to drive a fuel consuming demon - a 2004 Mach 1 Mustang. One day I pulled up next to a Prius at a stop light, and the driver looked over at me and my car and gave us (the car and I) a smirk as if to say “I’m a better person than you are.” Or perhaps he was just jealous.

Maybe he was a better person for driving his gas sipping Prius hybrid. But then again, I doubt if he looked at the bigger picture. How could he? He knew nothing about me as a person. Sure, my Mach 1 gets lousy gas mileage, but I put less than 5000 miles on it per year because I work at home. Which of us uses the most fuel overall? 

This issue is similar to those that animal rights activists often face. How can you support not killing animals for food when you are wearing a leather belt, carry a leather purse and wear leather shoes? What about cosmetics, don’t they contain animal products? Nearly everything we consume, whether that be food or iPods, has to be delivered by some means of fossil fuel burning transportation. Every time we use an electrical appliance, we are affecting the environment in some minute way. Should we stop eating food and lighting our homes?

The point is, I don’t want to see the carbon footprint issue turn into an adult form of finger pointing. Yes, there are things that we can all do to decrease our carbon footprint, but those things should be left to each of us to decide for ourselves. I drive a gas guzzler, but I also compost and recycle religiously. My neighbor had a solar energy system put on his roof, yet he drives a big diesel pickup truck. The guy in the Prius could be one of those people who refuses to sort his trash and dumps it all into one can.

If this whole concept of personal carbon footprints is going to obtain any credibility, we have to start by looking in the mirror and figuring out what we can do as individuals, instead of looking out the window and judging what our neighbors should be doing.