Students of hypocrisy will not be surprised to learn that some rich people who talk the talk of environmental awareness don’t walk the walk of energy conservation in their personal lives.
But even so, the “Do as we say, not as we do” ways of the glitterati in the resort town of Aspen made Coloradans’ jaws drop last week when The Denver Post showcased the staggering carbon dioxide outputs of the oversized vacation homes in that town – most of which is produced while the sprawling mansions are unoccupied.
As Steve Lipsher’s story noted, vacation homes generate 61 percent of Aspen’s residential carbon dioxide emissions – even though they are unoccupied an average of 277 days a year. The vacation homes generate an average average 43.8 tons of the greenhouse gas each year compared to 32.4 tons from the average full-time, single family Aspen residence. The Environmental Protection Agency says a typical four-person U.S. household generates 30 to 40 tons of carbon dioxide a year.
Aspen has 150 vacation homes larger than 10,000 square feet and such bowling-alley sized retreats pump out huge amounts of COb even when they aren’t occupied. That’s especially true when such icons of conspicuous consumption as heated driveways and roof-top snow melters are left running even when the owners are gone. And heaven forbid they turn off their towel-bar heaters.
Aspen is struggling, belatedly, to tighten its building codes to at least make token strides toward energy efficiency. And it encourages the rich to buy energy offsets so everyone else can be encouraged to conserve what they waste.
But it would be so easy for the wealthy to show some moral leadership and just let the snow stay on their driveways and rooftops and turn down the thermostat to 50 degrees when they’re not in town.
If a public shaming of our absentee overlords will encourage them to practice what they preach, The Post is happy to replace their green pretensions with scarlet letters.
