October 13, 2000

SUV-Driver Alert: Steer Clear of This Guy At Cocktail Parties
By Ann Grimes, Wall Street Journal

     
      By day, Robert Lind is a hard-working stiff who drives a 1988 BMW 325 that gets 27 miles to the gallon. By night, he posts bumper stickers on gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles that read: "I'm Changing the Climate! Ask Me How."

     Worried about rising gas prices and disgusted by the "blind consumption of resources" he sees around him in the San Francisco Bay area, the 48-year-old Mr. Lind calls himself the "Thomas Pain In The Ass." Six weeks ago, he began inviting others to tag along on a new Web site, www.imchangingtheclimate.com.

     The site tells visitors how to join the bumper-sticker campaign and offers up a few factoids, such as: "Switching from an average new car to a 13 mpg SUV for a year would waste more energy than leaving a refrigerator door open for six years."

     Mr. Lind likes to tag en masse. "I go to malls and tag every SUV in the lot," he says. He has rules, though. Commercial vehicles are off limits. He tags only late-model SUVs -- "not some beat up old Suburban some poor soul has inherited" -- and really big ones, avoiding "anything with a V-6." He doesn't retag.

     Since he began about six weeks ago, Mr. Lind says he's probably hit 500 cars. He isn't worried about the law, and with good reason. Technically, he could be cited for "malicious mischief," says San Francisco Police Department spokesman Jim Deignan. "But probably nothing would happen to him."