American Idle

Okay, so maybe I'm married to an environmental scientist who refuses to use a sprinkler system in the hot Georgia summer. Yes, our lush fescue lawn is brown and crispy by mid-July. And maybe, unlike some people, we faithfully compost, participate in our county's recycling program, and capture any stray water we can find, be it rainwater from the gutters or shower spray. Yes, there are buckets in my shower. Thanks to marrying the man I did, I have discovered that's how one keeps a vegetable garden alive when one vows to conserve water by any means and refuses to use a sprinkler system, even though the house came with one. I'll even grant you that we are those weird kinds of granola-head people who don't turn on the air-conditioner until it's absolutely necessary, BUT I'm not asking you to live as I do.

All I want from you is a simple pledge to stop idling your car engine as you wait for your kid to walk out of a dance studio or run off a soccer field. I am amazed at the number of parents I see spewing hydrocarbons into the air when they aren't moving for, let's see, oh, fifteen or twenty minutes.

It's so simple. Just turn off the car when you aren't moving in the vehicle. If the interior of your car gets hot and stuffy while you're waiting on your child, roll down a window. It's what us pioneers did back in the pre-air-conditioning, only three TV channel days. If you like to read while you wait for ballet class to end and night is falling, you can buy an LED book light that clips right onto your thriller. If you need tunes to make the wait for practice to end bearable, borrow your child's iPod.

Show your children that you really do care about the planet. Turn that idling engine off.