Walking the Walk (And Trotting the Trot)

Well I notice lately there are a lot of people talking about the carbon footprint, which used to be one of Wrusty's favorite topics before he got his cojones removed. Now he mostly looks for pretty flowers to eat. Anyway, a lot of people talk about reducing their carbon footprint, and how they bought a Prius and they don't care how much it cost because what really matters to them is saving the environment, and they plant lettuce and chives in a post-consumer pot on their windowsill, and they compost their eggshells and espresso grounds, and on weekends they save the world and so on, and they cluck their tongues at the poor shmos driving around in old gassy farm trucks, like anybody wants to drive a car that gets 8 miles to the gallon, but anyway there you are.

And then you get a postcard from them and they are in Brazil on vacation and of course they got there by burning a bazillion gallons of jet fuel. Or they decide to take a job selling solar panels all along the West Coast and their frequent flier miles go through the roof. Even Al Gore preaches his inconvenient truth gospel from a first class seat; he has circled the equator more times than anyone would care to count in service of urging people not to use up so much fossil fuel.

So there is plenty of talking but there is not a lot of walking. We only know one individual who totally eschews fossil fuels. Why yesterday he even humbly begged not to be loaded into a trailer because it was going to be pulled by a fossil-fuel-burning truck.

"No, no thank you," he politely declined. "I would much prefer to walk. Or perhaps I could just stay home."

And that is why we are nominating Willen to be the Greeny of the Year. He is a true and humble Greeny. You will never get a postcard from him in the Canary Islands. If he goes down the road, he will walk one footstep at a time. And if he is in a hurry, he will trot. And if you have some carrots, he may even let you hitch a ride in his zero emission Pioneer forecart.