Irony.

This past weekend I wasn't very carbon friendly in that I ended up flying to Colorado to visit my folks. The dirty carbon secret of my life is I am a travel addict. I love visiting new places, eating new foods and meeting adventurous people. Horrors of horrors, I really enjoy flying (though to be honest, flying commercial these days makes me nervous since the pressures are so much to cut costs that I worry about airlines cutting the muscle not just the fat). I love looking into the clouds, seeing the map of the world unfurl itself as my imagination wonders what's happening below. It's just so amazing. I've been trying to cut down, last year was the first time in 10 years I didn't make elite status on any airline.

As another complete aside, there is one thing about flying that always puzzles me, the instant I get on a plane I get all sleepy for the first 10 - 15 minutes, I don't just get sleepy, I get narcoleptic and pass out and wake up about 10 minutes later. I try to stay up for take off, and if available listen to the cockpit chatter. But right after we're off the ground. Bonk, I'm out. Anyone else feel that way when they fly?

But I'm not here to write about my flying addiction, what I am writing about is my surprise in reading in United's In-Flight Magazine a great article about cool new green technologies for automobiles. It includes mentions of a company Flex-Fuel US that is offering conversion kits to run on E85 instead of gasoline. Or check this out, Coskata a company that makes ethanol from non-food crops. It of course mentions Tesla Motors

It's a really informative survey of gasoline alternative automobiles, and I discovered it while on one of the most carbon inconvenient forms of transportation. Go figure.