Self-righteous Prius-driving jerks put in their place
June 26, 2008
"Who's Best for Earth? That Would Be Me."
Why oh why is this city not the solar energy capital of the world? Why?
This is but one of the many abstruse philosophical questions that torment me now that I am 46, perimenopausal and prone to lying awake at 2 a.m., mentally Google-Earthing, Google-Earthing, Google-Earthing. Deep into the night, while others are sleeping, I -- a college graduate, a Democrat and a Californian, that classic trifecta of eco-angst -- ponder the sprawl, the snarl, the smog. . . .
And when I zoom in on the middle of it, the ghostly cross hairs ratcheting down, there is my home town of Los Angeles: green-celebrity-filled, teeming with affluence and punishingly sunny. So sunny that last summer's Southern California heat wave triggered widespread power outages. Stifling 90-degree nights blew our family of four apart into a Jonestown-esque mandala, each body seeking rest in a different part of the house, all of us stripped to our underwear, clutching spray bottles, hugging wet pillows, every window flung wide.
Which got me to thinking (picture me waving my arms in emphatic semaphore): Why don't we do a cosmic jujitsu. . . and use the sun. . . to make the power. . . to run our air conditioning? Do you get my drift? Do you follow me? I think you do. The sun!