With Earth Hour just around the corner, it is probably time for me to sit down and write out this article which has been fermenting in my head for some time now. No, I won't be taking part in Earth Hour again this year. Just like last year. Why not? In part because I do not want to support any activity which lets people think they can shut their lights off for an hour a year, dust their hands off, and tell themselves that they've done something good for the planet. Also in part because I was already pretty happy with Earth Day, thank you very much. But I guess for most people, giving up one day a year for the planet was just too much to ask, so they had to shorten it to an hour.
And just for the record, we actively do quite a bit to reduce our 'carbon footprint', even if I do not give a crap about it. In part on the odd chance that someone is right and it does matter, I don't want anyone pointing back to me 50 years from now and saying I was part of the problem, not the solution. And in part because reducing one's carbon footprint actually has an indirect effect on some of the things that actually matter. For example, we switched our electricity to Bullfrog Power, which means I choose to pay more for carbon-free electricity for my house (and this website). And while we are not vegetarian, we get the vast majority of our meats directly from local small farmers. According to Diet for a Small Planet, feedlot beef consumes about 25 times the natural resources as getting the same nutrition from plants. However, grass-feed free-range beef like the stuff we get, consumes only about 3 times! Still not perfect, but considerably better than the run-of-the-mill feedlot stuff you buy at the supermarket. We are a family of 4 - soon 5 - and yet we live in a tiny house just shy of 1000 square feet. We could afford a bigger one, and this tiny house is certainly challenging at times, but we manage because it is responsible. We have a car, but we want to get rid of it. My number one goal on my job front is not a "better career", but rather, to get a job close enough to home that I can walk, and finally get rid of our 1 car.
The big problem I have with global warming is that it is too controversial, and there is far too much room for naysayers to debunk it. Meanwhile, there is rock-solid, indisputable science out there for a whole raft of other environmental issues that need our attention, and nobody is talking about them because our attention has been diverted by this nonsense.
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