I'm not going green either, darn it!

My good friend and fellow conservative Jeff made an impassioned post a few weeks ago explaining why his decision to begin riding his bike to work was not him "going green", such as it were. Of course, as soon as I read it and saw him online, I called him a lousy hippie. That's what friends do, after all.

Anyhow, it would seem that, even though I was joking, reality has a cold sense of irony on this one, because today, I purchased a bus pass. Now, much like Jeff, this decision was made with my best interests in mind first, and any aid to the well-being of the planet as just a bonus. As I mentioned previously, I'm now working at PENNDOT's main building in downtown Harrisburg, rather than at my normal office. One of the drawbacks of this change (aside from this building's ability to deflect AM radio waves and prevent me from getting my daily fix of sports talk radio) is that I'm leaving behind my regular office's private (and free) parking lot for the time being, and having to deal with the realities of city parking.

Personal cost is not necessarily an issue here when it comes to the parking, as my company will be reimbursing me for any parking expenses I incur. However, the garage nearest to my building is a city run lot, which are, of course, the most expensive lots available. And so my boss was, I'll say strongly encouraging me, to look into parking in a private lot, which is about 3/4 the price. I understood the concern, but I had two problems with the lot in question. First of all, it was a really crappy lot. It's just a gravel lot, and there's nothing even resembling security that I could see. Secondly, and most importantly, it's about 2 to 3 times further from my office than the city lot. I suck at estimating the actual distances, but I'm guessing it would have been at least a 15 minute walk, 2 times a day, every day. Now, I'm not opposed to walking, but if you're in PA today, you'll understand why I wasn't incredibly thrilled with the idea. (50 degrees all day, raining, etc) So, I was pretty well determined that I was going to just force my companies hand and tell them I was going to park in the city lot and if they really wanted to, they could just reimburse me for the cost of the cheaper lot. However, before I took on the risk of possibly having to eat that extra expense, I did research other options.

The best option, as you can guess, was the bus. I can drive about a mile, park for free along the road (but in a very public place), and pick up the bus, which will drop me off right by my building. The monthly bus pass is about half of what even parking in the cheaper lot would have been, so the company makes out. The move all but eliminates any serious walking for me, so that concern is addressed. And, as an added bonus, I lose about 10-12 city miles/day in my car. There was a time not too long ago when that wouldn't have been a big deal, but with a car getting about 20 city miles to the gallon and gas creeping up on 4 dollars a gallon, it should add up.

So I, like my buddy Jeff, am not going green. But you may call me a hippie if you like. And I should say, I have absolutely nothing against being environmentally responsible. In fact, I'm quite in favor of it. You give me a choice between two otherwise pretty similar options where one is more environmentally sound and I'll take the environmentally friendly option every time. I think that being good stewards of the environment goes along with the kind of stewardship that should characterize every aspect of the Christian life. I just think a lot of the modern environmental movement goes well beyond stewardship into a level of conservationism that becomes reckless. And the only thing I have against mass transit is that in Harrisburg (like many/most places that offer it) it's not viable on it's own, and so only exists on government subsidy, which in general rankles my Libertarian leaning mind.

I will say, however, that I find the fact that this all occurred after the weekend in which I officially became a Libertarian (I renewed my driver's license which finally presented me with a ready opportunity to change my affiliation with expending any actual effort) rather fascinating.