carbon junkies are coming to stay
This here is a fan of real cash. It’s more cash than I’ve ever handled in my life and I don’t feel even slightly light-headed. Cash just doesn’t do it for me. Maybe if had the equivalent in gold doubloons, I’d feel like a tiny, gleeful, leaping leprechaun. Maybe then my blood pressure would rise.
So what on Earth are we doing with so much dough? It’s going towards an idea we’ve been toying with for maybe 9 months now. Let me clarify: Alex has been toying and I have been skirting.
The subject is a car and one we will purchase. When I saw our savings neatly stacked in a pile I immediately thought about my life back home, America and the financial crisis. Very few Americans I know would forgo auto financing and laid down cold cash. It’s just not risky enough (according to the Duke professor I saw on Tuesday). 
Oh, how boring Germans must be! But who’s sitting relatively happy now?
Still, owning a car is a luxury. Ever since Alex changed jobs and had to give up the company car habit, I’ve been pushing for us to try and hump it with no personal vehicle in an effort to be less luxurious in of all places Munich. Hippie-mode worked so far but we’ve become a bunch of homebodies making two nice dimples in our couch and only getting up on occasion to tend our herb garden.
We would have ditched the loner lifestyle sooner. Why the car didn’t happen for us earlier is that it partly made little financial sense (gulp, gasoline/diesel prices!). It’s also partly due to an online carbon footprint test I took. Talk about scare tactics. It worked. There is nothing more frightening than seeing a visual of more than one Earth planet being gobbled up by my pac-man shaped head just. Or maybe that was a dream? whatever.
In order to get down to one planet consumption (still not ideal) I basically would have to live in a passive-house matchbox in the Englischer Garten (ooh totally doable) and give up flights to see my family in Florida and beyond (sort of less ideal).
I was defiant. I did not go to environmental engineering school to waste more than one planet. The evil in me was carbon consumption and I was on a mission to exercise the demon. And we did. We took trains, subways, and buses. We had adventures in car sharing. Swapped stores with strangers. Weather permitting, I rode my mountain bike wearing a skirt and heels for a night on town at the amusement or horror (what? I was wearing a blouse!) of our fellow city folk. We were model citizens, until New Year’s Eve.
On December 31, 2008 our days without a major carbon emission incident plummeted to zero once we landed on the Canaries.
I could easily blame Alex. He came up with the brilliant idea to fly to La Palma for two lovely weeks over mountains and lava beaches. It was spectacular. But I carry half the blame. After all, I said yea to the idea too.
Another incident happened again on May 12th. What? Avoid Florida? no way. So I give up. When I think about how badly air travel negatively impacts the Earth (i.e. not only CO2 but nasty gases released into the upper atmosphere) I shudder to think of my role in the Earth’s demise. Now the damage is done. What more could a car do to my already lewd record? I guess I can try to convince myself that our soon-to-be steel on wheels is going to do slightly less damage to the Earth than flying. Too bad, we can’t drive over the Atlantic.
Honestly. We tried 15 months but something wasn’t right. Something was missing. Eventually with Alex’s persistent encouragement I started to see our auto-frei reality in a different light. Our attempts at carbon fasting in some respects violated our motion towards happiness (reads: my sanity). Not that the quest to reduce carbon emissions somehow stopped me from being compassionate or demonstrating kindness (except when it concerned autoscout24). It’s not that I’m anti-social and that sharing a wagon or sitting next to a stranger wags me the wrong way (well maybe the perpetual subway complainers are a drag). The biggest problem with living sans-auto is that we weren’t racking up the experiences we wanted to. We became too efficient in living small. Maybe some really cool dreams in that time will never be realized. We also had to own up that we aren’t the best of planners. A good sunny weekend is just too unpredictable in Germany. Plan a rocking and affordable quick getaway with public trans? With us, unlikely. Had we made the most of this journey in 15 months. I think so. Will a car help us make the most of our lives in the future?
Suck it up, you know it does, H! A car is the whiff of freedom everyone is clawing to get at. The humble life is over. It was righteous while it lasted.
We are all seeking something better in life. I know some people live to become parents and sacrifice the whirlwind DINK or OINK* life, continuing the human line in hopes of making the world a better place. Others contribute to society in other ways.. hopefully also for the better and spread a positive wellbeing. My respect and admiration go out to those who juggle both aspects. The best choice has to be: enjoy the time while you have it. Having more options allows for that enjoyment.
I know. You’re thinking, “so what’s the problem?” My deliberation seems futile and petty. Everyone strives for flexibility in their lives. Only my flexibility cost someone else in the world possibly their livelihood and health. There just might be someone in Guatemala who believes I ask for world domination every night before bedtime. Looking at myself and my western ideas from the outside, I may think that too. But is it my fault? I’ll just tell myself that I’m a victim of instant gratification. I’m the little girl who ate the inside of the marshmallow. I never properly trained myself to share my piece of the pie. But I desire to, really. What I can’t openly admit is that I seem to wish to eat my share of pie with only the finest cutlery and china. So I’ll admit it here. Nobody is reading this anyway.
Am I happy that we are getting a car? Ultimately, yes. I’ll be able to make use of my German driver’s license and we’ll definitely sign up in long distance car sharing (and I will tape mace underneath the glove compartment) to lessen the guilt. We won’t give up public transportation. Only now we have another option when public transportation is less ideal. So a non-alcoholic toast to our re-indoctrination into the carbon junkie association! vroom. vroom.
* DINK – double income no kids, OINK – one income no kids
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I guess the thing that you’ve got to do is think before driving. At least you’re worried about it. Most of our countrymen don’t give two craps about hopping in the car to drive a half a mile. Most of our countrymen will drive from one shopping center across the street to another one.
One of the things I don’t like about Australia in comparison to Europe is that you MUST have a car. I use public transport for work and walk or bike whenever possible, but I hate the fact that I still have to drive a lot.
You do the best you can.
.-= A Free Man´s last blog ..And where the hell do the days go? There’s another one sneaking away. =-.
AFM, That’s what I think of Australia: wide expanses, Kangaroos in the backseat.. random blooming onions cravings.
Sure, with the demographics of Australia, the need for a car makes sense. Perhaps you won’t have to hate it too much soon: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/shai_agassi_on_electric_cars.html
Took me 17 months, two heel spurs, and 5 months of serious pain and we are right in that VW Passat life. And my life is tremendously happier, as is that of my children, who no longer are first picked up, last drpped off, with a mom who doesn’t know what’s happening. We bought a diesel and still don’t do all that much, but our qol is far higher and we have saved far more than the monthly cost (amortized over 4 years)+insurance+fuel+ dpt by dropping bus fare and decreasing the cost of our consumables through weekly shopping at (far) lower cost stores.
Congratulations! We wired the money, so we didn’t get that thrill- and I would have found it thrilling. My last job involved wiring 100s of millions, so a wire never does anything for me. But until Europe, I never carried cash.
.-= G´s last blog ..Macintosh help? =-.
Thanks for sharing G. That’s a great point with the grocery stores. I feel robbed when I walk out of the Tenglemann 500 m aways from our home. I wondered why we didn’t wire the money because I feel really uneasy with all those bills on our person.
I guess it’s different because you guys had a car and then didn’t. I’ve been in Europe for 11 years now and have never had one. Granted, I do have to drive for work a few times a week, but we can’t use them other than to work and back and a stop at the supermarket if it’s on the way.
When I venture out into the countryside, we are well connected up here by train and bus, so a car isn’t needed either. Granted not every little village is serviced by train or bus, but most are.
A bike is fine for me. Even for the supermarket and launderette.
@J A bike and public transportation are also fine for us and we still use them as our main source when in the city center. We gave it a good effort living with ‘kein Auto’. The knowledge we gained from that experience will hopefully make us more conscientious car owners.
I am though pleasantly surprised how many times we’ve already said, ‘ it sure is nice that we have a car.’ This is esp. true for traveling back to family in NRW.