Would you volunteer to pay more — much more — for gas?

It’s pretty clear that our next president, whoever he might be, isn’t going to do squat about global warming. The oil pipers in Washington DC are going to continue to call their profit-driven, business-as-usual tune of climate change denial.

Hey, so we have a few more forest fires, higher acid levels in our rising oceans and record-breaking heat waves. Mere anomalies, friends. Keep on truckin’!

So here’s an idea for 2012 and beyond to make sure there are more beyonds...beyond beyond....

I just checked on-line and the pump price of a gallon of gas in Europe is now roughly $10. Yes, a fill-up of 12 gallons costs the Sweds, the French, the Italians and other continentals a cool $120.

The European overage is about $6.50/gallon from what we pay. In other words, they pay $78 more each time they fill up.

For a long time New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and others have advocated a tax that would force us to pay closer to what our European friends pay.

Good luck with that (see above).

But what if those of us not in media-inspired disconnect about global warming and unprecedented “natural disasters” VOLUNTARILY paid the difference between Europe’s price and ours every time we gassed up?

We’d do it on a special “Green” credit card that would do the computation and redirect the difference to....

To whom? The government? I don’t think so. Somehow the money would simply finance more tax subsidies for Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell and agribusiness, more money for drone attacks and more bail-outs for banks “too big to fail” etc.

No, because the Green Credit Card is a voluntary program, we donors get to decide who gets the money. One idea is a blue-ribbon consortium of organizations working on “The Great Planetary Turning” that will save this blue-green pebble in space from being turned into a black cinder.

For now, be patient. We can get to the details of who gets the money later. Your homework is to think about how the consortium should be governed and whether it should be (could be) a tax-exempt non-profit. (Maybe government could help by making the tax exemptions especially attractive, just as long as Washington keeps its mitts — and Mitt — off deciding how our donations are spent.)

Sitting on the back porch with my wife this evening, I dragged out my little calculator and we ran our own numbers. We aren’t particularly big drivers and one of us (me) drives a hybrid. We estimated that together we manage to burn through about 500 gallons of gas a year. That’s probably a conservative estimate, but let’s work with it.

If we use the European benchmark of $10 a gallon (if they can do it so can we), the two of us would voluntarily contribute roughly $3250 a year (500 gallons X $10 = $5000 minus $1750  for the gas itself). That’s $3250 from two Americans contributing to the cause of saving the planet for us and future generations. (Did I mention that we’re slated to be grandparents for the first time next month? A sobering reality...a grandchild entering a world of record heat waves and melting ice caps.)

So is the contribution worth it?

Is it worth it if it’s a tax deduction? Is it worth it if it encourages us to buy more fuel efficient vehicles or use mass transit? Is it worth it if the money helps build high-speed rail, more electric buses and trolleys, more solar generators?

Is it worth it if it catches on and contributes mightily to saving the planet for our grandchild and millions of other grandchildren?

I think so.

What do you think? Would you volunteer?

Addendum: A variation might be to offer cards in different "editions." One might phase in increases in your donation. You pay $5 a total of gallon this year (that might be an "orange" credit card), $6 next (pale orange...on the way to a "cooler" color) etc. Another version starts you at the $10 a gallon maximum but then "rewards" you as you meet goals in lowering your gas consumption. Of course if you go 100 percent electric, you pay nothing to anyone. At which point we might consider the source of your electricity. But that's another story...

HERE's a link to an even more modest approach by fellow Quakers in Berkeley. Every dime helps.

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Vagaries of Volunteerism

Something happened in Hillsdale in the last 36 hours that has led me to think about a variation on Joseph Stalin’s chilling quote:

The death of one man is a tragedy.

The death of millions is a statistic.

What happened here is that an elderly couple with dwindling resources was in need of volunteer labor to do a very specific task. The word went out via the e-mail grapevine. The couple’s need was a compelling story. It also seemed to resonate with the holiday season.

The result was that many more would-be volunteers stepped up to help than were needed. A logistical crisis was in the making until someone with a grasp of what was needed said, “Whoa! Let a few of us take care of this.”

In short, the volunteerism threatened to overwhelm the problem and impose itself on the elderly victims.

That might be the end of the story, but as someone who watched this tale unfold (and volunteered to help) I’m trying to capture the excess energy before it vanishes.

Could all of us interested in helping the couple be enlisted to, say, prepare hundreds (including ourselves) for a natural disaster? Afterall, we’ve been warned of the devastation from an earthquake that is predicted to decimate our neighborhood before the middle of the century.

I fear it’s unlikely the desire to help the couple will transfer to the larger problem. It’s not just that the switch from the graphic story of two elderly neighbors to the epic of an entire neighborhood destroyed is like going from “tragedy” to “statistics.” We also go from an immediate, visible need to one that has no visible form — yet.

The question is still worth raising: Can we would-be volunteers envision what the aftermath of disaster might look like — and take it equally to heart? Can we then, with energy similar to that we were willing to direct to the couple, set about mitigating a disaster’s damage?

I wouldn’t count on it, but I’d love to be proven wrong for the same reason I'd love to have Stalin proven wrong.

Volunteers as Friends

Most of our relationships are relatively easy to define.

Student/teacher, teacher/student, neighbor/neighbor, professional/client, clerk/customer, activist/activist, congregant/congregant, mother/father/daughter/son, sibling/sibling etc.

Usually institutions define relationships for us, whether those institutions are neighborhoods, families, schools. congregations or businesses.

(By the way, something I like about Quakers is that our formal name is “The Religious Society of Friends,” which may help friendships form faster than otherwise would be the case.)

Recently I’ve been thinking about all the people I know through formal relationships and about just how much I have shared with them. I’ve also thought of the fun and satisfaction associated with these relationships.

But just when and how do, or should, these relationships evolve into friendships?

Sometimes relationships require that we consciously NOT be friends. A conflict of interest might arise. As a journalist I have met many people who, under other circumstances, might well become friends. But the nature of my work wouldn’t allow that to happen.

As a teacher, I couldn’t become a friend to my students although I was friendly and, in fact, tried to help them in ways that no friend ever could.

To be sure, with the passage of time, and changes in roles, several former students and even news sources have become friends (or potential friends), although frequently it is hard to pinpoint exactly when the transformation becomes possible. Graduation, career change or retirement aren’t always natural watersheds in relationships.

But, with the above constraints in mind, I can think of a few signs that mark the change to friendship. One is a willingness to mutually share confidences in trust. Another is a willingness to offer or ask a favor with no expectation or thought of reciprocation. Yet another is inviting someone to share an experience that has nothing to do previous roles. When is a lunch no longer a business lunch but simply a lunch with a friend?

Many of these musing about friendships result from my working as a volunteer with many other volunteers.

Our involvement begins with our being co-workers. “We volunteer together,” we might explain.

But after years of “volunteering together” I am inclined simply to say, “We are friends. We volunteer together.”

Perhaps volunteerism is a variant of friends’ willingness, even eagerness, to give and help each other.

We may not confide in each other or even see each other socially, but somehow our giving, if not to each other, but together to others, forges a friendship.

I think that those of us who volunteer together would do well, with time, to acknowledge ourselves first and foremost as friends — joyful and grateful to give together to others.