I’m returning my BP credit card. I’ve had it since I was 25 years old, when it was an Amoco card, before BP acquired them. My first credit card, in fact; a simple gas card with a modest credit line. It helped me establish my own credit, to buy my first non-beater car, to buy a house and furnish it, to pay for the things that raising kids and establishing a modern American life seemed to require. Now I’m sending it back. For two reasons.

First, I don’t want that much credit anymore. Especially in this new economic reality since the meltdown. I’ve got all my bills paid off and my mortgage paid down to where I can drown it in the bathtub. I pay off my credit card every month, the one that buys carbon offsets for every dollar I spend. I like that. I also like zeroing out the balance each month. I feel fiscally lean, clean, and green. That’s reason number one.

Reason number two, I’ve fallen out of love with BP. It was always a rocky relationship anyway, born more out of necessity than desire. I needed gas for my car; to get the groceries, take the kids to school, drive to work, go out on dates. Amoco /BP provided the fuel for my emerging life. But I saw the early warning signs, concerns about emissions, and then the growing awareness of the threat of climate change from the waste CO2 my car couldn’t help but emit. Still I clung to the relationship, telling myself that BP was the best of the bunch. After all hadn’t John Browne, the BP CEO in 1997, outed the oil companies on climate change, admitting that they were a leading cause of the problem and needed to be part of the solution? That was radical, and I swooned for Lord Browne’s courage and integrity. I told all my friends to buy their gas from BP, or at least Shell, who seemed to follow in BP’s footsteps for awhile.

But the bloom is off the petroleum rose for good. Good intentions or evil machinations, the plumes of petroleum blooming from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico have ripped the muscle shirt of Beyond Petroleum wide open, exposing the environmental death angel beneath. Whether anyone means to or not, wants to or not, our addiction and dependence on fossil fuels- especially oil and coal- is killing workers, species and fouling all of our nests. I can’t be part of it any more. I may still be hooked and looking for that next fix, but I’m starting to pry the cold bony fingers of fossil energy off my arms and throat. I’m biking more, carpooling for school, putting in a new hot water system to cut my oil use by 80% and praying for algal diesel. And I’m sending back my ring- er, I mean my BP credit card. Hey, it’s just a symbol, but what if everyone sent back their gas cards? Like a bus with CHICAGO across the front of it, it might not tell where we are, but it can sure show where we’re headed. Beyond Petroleum.