I never dropped off the Edwards email list, mostly because they don’t abuse it with either size or frequency. And it’s a large part of what’s kept me committed, to the extent I am, to Edwards 08 as my first choice. Nice one came out today:

We cannot wait until the next president is elected to begin to take action on global warming. We all must take responsibility and do our part to stop global warming today—even if the current government refuses to act.

That’s why today I’m announcing my commitment to make my campaign “carbon neutral”—meaning we will offset the impact of all our energy use to ensure that our campaign does not contribute to global warming.

[snip]…Presidential campaigns by their nature use an enormous amount of energy for travel and operations. Which is why today I have also directed the campaign to purchase carbon offsets that support alternative energy production to neutralize the global warming impact from our travel and office energy use.

Carbon offsets are an expensive proposition for a national campaign—but I believe it is an investment for our planet that we simply must make.

Global warming is bigger than any political party, any election—and certainly any one campaign—and good ideas for achieving carbon neutrality should be shared freely.

Nice touch there, don’t ya think? And here’s another. This is the sort of note I just don’t think you’d see out of too many presidential contenders: a pat on the back for a fellow, albeit ex, contender:

We weren’t the first campaign to declare our efforts to become carbon neutral. Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack had announced carbon neutrality for his campaign shortly before he withdrew a few weeks ago.

The mail doesn’t go into much in the way of technical details beyond what I’ve already clipped. And they admit they could use some input on ways to accelerate the process, to actually reduce carbon output rather than just pay the “offset” fees.

So if you’ve got a spare tour-sized bus that runs on biodiesel, or a fleet of hybrids you’re not using at the moment or for the next couple of years, drop ’em a line:

I’d like to hear your ideas on how we—all of us on this campaign, and throughout America—can reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide.

Tell me your ideas by visiting our campaign blog:

JohnEdwards.com/r/etc

Currently, we’re the only campaign in either party to make the carbon neutral pledge—but we hope we won’t be for long. Global warming doesn’t stop at party lines and neither should our commitment to preventing it.

And not a beg for money anywhere in it. I like that kind of campaign mail.

Keep on keepin’ on, Johnny. You ever schedule a swing through west Tennessee, try to put out word ahead of time, okay?