Be environmentally responsible - have fewer kids

When I meet people at cocktail parties and the conversation turns to cars, it inevitably emerges that I have four cars, of which two are Jeeps. All the cars have six cylinders, and the smallest engine of the lot is the BMW at 3.0 liters. This revelation usually causes people to look at me with furrowed brows and a sharp intake of breath, as if to say "How could you?" There are a few people (usually women with bad hair, cracked feet and bitten nails) who actually utter the words.

When these same people learn that we have only 2 people in our household (the wife and yours truly), the sharp intakes of breath come close to hyper-ventilation.

The immediate assumption is that I am personally responsible for the deforestation of the Amazon, the depletion of all the earth's natural resources, and all the other ills that ail us. If they could find a way to connect the genocide in Darfur to my cars, they would do so happily.

But in my defense, I have a clear, logical and completely rational explanation why two people need (note, I didn't say want) four cars. I suppose I could confound and frustrate the greenies by saying I have four cars because I can. But I don't. I have excellent reasons.

First, we live in Colorado, just outside of Boulder, at a height of 6,000 ft above sea-level. And while we have glorious dry summers, we also have snowy winters. In fact as I write this, we've just dug ourselves out of the Blizzard of 06 with snowfall around 28 inches where we are, and drifts up to 4 feet on our driveway. Just to put that in perspective, that's snow up to an average man's hips. The only vehicles that can get up to our house on days like this are 4 wheel drives with lockable front and rear differentials. But you don't want to drive the Jeeps in the summer. So the BMW is for fun driving in the summer and the Mercedes for family outings in the summer.

Also, we have 2 golden retrievers - make that 2 rambunctious golden retrievers. You cannot possibly suggest seriously that we take the dogs out to the park or to the vets in the back of either the Mercedes or the BMW. Hence the Jeeps. Makes eminent sense when you think about it doesn't it?

But my point is not that, because of where I choose to live or the pets I choose to have, I somehow have a pass to treat the environment with willful abandon. No, quite the contrary. I think I, with my four cars, have a smaller sustained effect on the environment than the average American.

Here's my reasoning: Despite the fact that I have four cars, due to the immutable laws of physics, I can only drive one car at a time. The same applies to my wife. So no matter how profligate I am, the maximum impact I can have on the environment at any given time, is that which is caused by 2 cars. Not four.

The average American of my age has 3 or 4 kids, who all drive. They in turn will have 3 or 4 kids each. And if each of them heeds the Birkenstock brigade and has only one hybrid each, their impact on the planet and its environment will still be far greater than mine.

So my suggestion to all the women with cracked feet who look at me accusingly, is that perhaps their contribution to saving the environment might be tubal ligation. In any event you don't want their kind propagating do you?