He wrote back a few hours later:

Oh yeah, flying: it's the dark underbelly of the whole anti-carbon campaign. Nobody really wants to give it up — that's how entitled we have come to feel about 500 mile an hour commuting through the stratosphere. And we comfort ourselves with the statistic that we're getting Prius-level mileage up there. Trouble is, that CO2 is being injected directly into the stratosphere where it wrecks many times more havoc than CO2 produced at ground level. I can't quote the multiplier, and it's possible that no one really knows. But gut level, if you wanted to greenhouse a planet, what better strategy than to inject the greenhouse gasses directly to the level where they are the most effective?

Sorry, no personal offense to this, but it's been on my mind since last summer. I haven't been in a plane since, and in truth that's one of the big reasons I didn't come out to climb with you guys this winter. I just felt committed to ground transport only, either drive or train. And that adds a lot more time commitment to a trip.

I've always gone light & fast with vehicles, at least ever since my '58 VW Bus gave it up and became a chicken coop. (I hear it's still up Chipmunk Canyon out of Bishop — now there would be a photo.) And none too fast, really, though everything since has seemed speedy after grinding up the Sherwin Grade in second at maybe 27 mph.

Went through five Honda Civics commuting to Kansas and Oklahoma piled high with top ropes to teach beginning climbing classes. After that a VW Scirocco was about as zippy as my tiny transporters ever got. My mom always shook her head in disbelief that I bought it from an Arab in the middle of the night in the bowels of an LA parking garage. Didn't realize until I had my hands on the pink slip that it was salvaged, though I could never find any damage and it drove straight and true for at least a hundred thousand miles.

I can't tell you how many times I have introduced myself as a climbing guide, only to have people's expressions dissolve into disappointment as they looked from me to my economy car and back, like I had just terminally wrenched some image they held that would have me climbing down out of some big 4x4 rolling up my flannel sleeves or something. My truth is, though, the 99.4% of my driving to the mountains is nice and paved — just about the same as all those he-man SUVs droning along in the next lane with Walter Mitty at the helm.