smugness is all we have
As we were cycling home through a light rain, on our way back from a 10-mile trip to the Farmers Market and the library up in Lexington, a thought occurred to me: if only there were some way to monetize our hippy tendencies. A smugness trading scheme, if you will. See, plenty of people want to live sustainable, hippy lifestyles; they're just prevented from achieving that goal by non-hippy hang-ups like scheduled activities for their kids, or jobs, or, you know, having any money. Not us!
So here's the plan. If you're a liberal environmentalist type but still find yourself driving your SUV everywhere, even to the store a mile and half away with no one else in the vehicle with you, throw us five bucks; we'll cycle a comparable distance with our family of four. For ten we'll do it in the rain! Do you wish you could do the locavore thing but only have time to shop at the Stop-and-Shop? For twenty dollars a week you can rest assured in the knowledge that we're eating exclusively local produce for you all summer long (the winter program would be a bit more expensive, unfortunately).
I figure that it's kind of like carbon trading. Just like with carbon-trade schemes companies can fill the air with greenhouse gasses just as fast as they always have, but by after a tiny fraction of their operating expenses to plant some trees in South America they get to trumpet their green credentials on their packaging. And I don't mean to sound too sarcastic: the tree planting is probably helping something, and the companies that pay for it are at least thinking of helping out. And you can be like them! It costs less than you think to join our smugness trading scheme and know that we're out there trying to live a different, more sustainable life—for you!
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Er, I apologize if any of the above sounds too antagonistic or bitter—or indeed too smug. I just meant it to be funny. We actually mostly do the hippy things we do because we're pretty poor, though, so we actually could use the money.