Going Green?

On Tuesday morning, I drove myself and my 16 yr old daughter from Princeton to the Philadelphia Airport to catch a flight home to Bermuda.

Living on an Island that only allows 1 car per house assessment, where water is collected off ones roof, and where astronomical electricity rates insure conservative use, I have become more aware of resource use and waste.

I read a lot about the green movement in the USA, the groundswell of support for "change", the tough economic times for labor and the high cost of energy. Sounds like a recipe for resource conservation, right?

I asked my daughter to count the number of cars we passed with 1 passenger and the number of cars we passed with more than one passenger ( I admit I drive fast!). We were travelling towards a major US city at 8AM, so it is safe to assume that the bulk of the traffic consisted of daily commuters.

The results: sample size 100 cars (we could have done many more but it was getting lame in the words of my daughter) 94 Single Passenger Cars 6 Double Passenger Cars 0 greater than Double Passenger Cars.

These results are more or less consistent with similar observations I've made over the last 20 years.

Carpooling is greener, and more economical than hybrid cars. If the US is really serious, they should institute a road tax on single drivers and use the proceeds to lower the enormous debt that threatens to destroy the purchasing power Americans will need to consume all that fuel.