Grounded By Perception

I was talking to a friend the other day who knows a venture capitalist who did well for himself and is now investing in the clean-technology/renewable energy/green space. He has a problem though in that with where he now focuses and the companies and people he works with, he has to be very careful with how he manages his own carbon footprint. That means that the private jet that he and his family used has been grounded. I always felt weird about flying on a corporate or private jet from the money side, but I can certainly see now how the use of a private jet just doesn't fit with being environmentally friendly. I suspect that Al Gore had to rethink his flying choices a long time ago. Most of us don't have to worry about this problem, but the idea that we will have to change our lifestyles due to the perception and the reality of our carbon footprints, I believe will become a real issue in the future. Already we read about the neighbors who look down their noses and nearly shun those in the 'hood who over do it with the holiday lights. When I was investigating going solar for our house one of the selling features was that if we went into negative power usage for the year that we could share our "extras" with the neighbors for community holiday lighting. I actually thought that defeated the purpose, but none the less, I guess it could be a way to be a good neighbor. Sometime in the near future someone is going to challenge each one of us about the car we drive, the light bulbs we use, the windows that need to be replaced, the amount of times we have the grass cut, etc. Of course if you already have kids, you have likely already heard the lecture. Don't fret on that one though, as you now have a much better reason to make sure they turn off the lights when they leave the room and if they don't then you can just ground them. See, we all might get grounded by how we use our energy sometime soon.