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Race Car Driver Aims to Put Brakes on Global Warming
"We are not an eco-friendly sport," said Leilani Munter, who came to Capitol Hill this week to promote her cause.
(By Linton Weeks -- The Washington Post)
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It's that science background that led her into activism. "We are not an eco-friendly sport," she says. She hopes to convince racing bigwigs to develop more fuel-efficient engines and environment-friendly venues.
"A lot of NASCAR tracks don't even have recycling programs," she says, adding that race fans tend to drink beverages from cans in large quantities.
The chief topic yesterday, though, was the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which would significantly reduce greenhouse emissions by rewarding companies for polluting less and would promote the protection of wildlife. Munter was lobbying in favor of it, along with representatives of the National Wildlife Federation.
She has found that persuading the professional racing world to change its ways is no Sunday drive. "I am a female, a vegetarian. I already didn't fit in," she says. Her sister, Natascha, is married to Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir. She oversees two Web sites: an eponymous racing-oriented site and the green-leaning CarbonFreeGirl.com. Her fiance, Craig Davidson, is a New Zealander whom she describes as an eco-geek.
She has not hit the big time yet. "I'm just sort of making my rent," she says. "I'm like a starving artist." She spends about $120 to put an acre of rain forest into a trust every time she enters a race, she adds.
Off-track, she drives a 1997 Volkswagen Golf.
When told of Munter's trip to Capitol Hill, Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch -- a group that has been critical of professional auto racing -- says, "I think it's a fantastic thing."
Munter's outspokenness, he notes, "shows the breadth and depth of those who want to do something about global warming."
Having a race car driver warn of global warming "is a little bit of a person-bites-dog story," he says. "It shows that it's not just climate scientists or greenie-weenies, it's bread-and-butter Americans who are saying we have got to get on the stick."
