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The Lockean Project

Sputtering on

“Sputtering on”, Monterey County Weekly—Aug. 19-25, 2021

Bill Monning urges the Weekly to study the carbon footprint of Car Week (“Letters,” Aug. 12-18). I like Car Week and I’ll admit there are environmental impacts caused by all of the visitors and their vehicles – but let’s keep this in perspective. The sainted Monterey Bay Aquarium draws over 2 million visitors a year to our Peninsula. What is the carbon footprint of an average of 38,000 weekly visitors to our community?

We don’t hear or smell their visitors the same way Car Week attendees “out” themselves, but the carbon footprint caused by the Aquarium’s visitors cannot be denied. Of course if we closed the Aquarium, the economic impact would be considerable. Many businesses would fail and many thousands would lose their jobs. But what the heck, what’s a few thousand jobs when you have an environment to save? Go ahead and study the carbon footprint of Car Week if you want, but just to show that you’re honest journalists who don’t care whose ox you gore, go ahead and commission a study on the carbon footprint of those Aquarium visitors.

Mark Carbonaro | Monterey