Wealthy MD: DNC carbon program "endearing"

Doctor and delegate to the Democratic National Convention Mark Thrun on the wisdom of the DNC's carbon credit program:

$12 bucks is all. $12 bucks and I can erase the carbon footprint I lay down during the course of the Democratic Convention. It seems so cheap.

Now if I wanted to erase my carbon footprint for a year, its gonna cost me a bit more. $324 to be exact. Given the amount I have to drive back and forth in the city, this seems an easy way to assuage my environmental guilt. . . .

Well bully for you, doc. Many people would not find it easy at all. Then this strange, question-begging, cluck-like paragraph:

I love the concept. The fact that we have repeatedly violated air standards for the city this summer makes the project even more endearing. And I am certain to participate [so you haven't, yet?]. But I have to wonder, if buying carbon offsets is so easy, does it really do anything? I understand where the money is going. And I get the benefits of investments in lower impact energy sources.

Like broken windmills. But underneath his lib vagueness Thrun knows the truth:

Maybe just making a payment will encourage more people to ponder their own impact on the environment. After all, reading recently about real-time home electricity monitors certainly made me envious for a meter. I can easily see me turning off all the lights in the house, obsessively trying to bring the reading down. Maybe the secondary effect of just getting people to think about their own footprint makes web payoffs efficacious.

Payoffs.

Here, by the way, is the latest Green Challenge map from the DNC website:

Compare it to the map from July 28, only three days before the alleged deadline to participate in the offset program:


Truly heroic nagging, is my guess.

Update: So if the good doctor hasn't bought his offset yet, why is Colorado's delegation shown in the "100% participation" category? Hmmm?

Update II: The good doctor. Take me now, Jesus.

Update III: The Rocky ends it endless series on Civic Center Park by unleashing student photographers from the Art Institue of Colorado on the place. Man they're good. Check out the slide show.

Update IV: Oops, the Rocky's Civic Center series continues, and this is a good one, on the park's statuary. The first pic is worth the trip.