The Top Five Hardcore Things You Can Do to Stop Global Warming
“… make that the Top Six things …” or “What the hell kind of bird just crapped on my windshield?!”
Let’s face it … doing something about global warming is the new cool activist topic of choice. I know ’cause I heard it on E! News.
Being environmentally conscious is so trendy even America Online is featuring tips on how to save the planet. It doesn’t get much hipper than that.
Here at ET we’ve always wanted to hang with the cool kids, so after reading AOL’s suggestions, we decided we could do better.
After all, there’s no sense being half-assed about your commitment to save the Earth.
Here are five hard-core tips for the those who want to walk the gangsta nature walk:
1. Hybrid, That’s All I Ever Heard
One of the most common suggestions made by concerned climate change advocates is to drive a hybrid car. By hopping in your Prius you can save money and save the planet, so driving a hybrid lets you kill two humans with one stone (because killing two birds would be ecologically wrong).
But why drive a hybrid car when you could use a Vietnamese orphan-powered rickshaw? Talk about status! Not only will you be just as trendy as Angelina and Brad by adopting someone from a third-world country, you’ll also be helping to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
2. Expect More, Pay Less
Don’t be fooled by big corporations like The Gap and Target who are posturing for your green dollar. Everyone knows real organic clothes are ones that have already started to decay. And you can only get those from one source — homeless people.
Use cloves and lemon juice to help disinfect the clothes you buy from that mentally ill woman on the corner who thinks you’re a Klingon. And don’t forget that Victoria’s Secret items are also recyclable as well as being a real test of your commitment to halt global warming.
3. Mow Better Blues
AGW believers hate lawn mowers. So, they’ve come up with a totally reasonable solution to maintaining your lawn — goats. Companies like Goats-R-Us (www.goatsrus.com) charge around $700 an acre for their service.
While that may sound expensive (raised social consciousness never comes cheap), that cost includes transportation and nutritional supplements as well as health care and insurance for the goats. Imagine how good you’ll feel knowing that you’re helping the environment. On the other hand, you’ll probably feel worse that the goats have a better benefits program than you do.
4. You’re Now Free to Move (Slowly) About the Country
Eco-tourism is the latest fad in the travel industry. But wait, you weren’t really thinking about driving your hybrid car down to Costa Rica, were you?
The only natural way to head down to Central America on your summer vacation is to walk. Assuming you walk at a reasonable pace, don’t dawdle at rest stops and bring plenty of Xtasy, you should be able to make the trip in 70-80 days if you only sleep every third day. Not close enough to nature? Try making the trip naked.
5. I Can’t Believe I Swallowed the Whole Foods Thing
Pay more, eat bland. Whole Foods and other organic supermarkets specialize in over-priced, tasteless food. But that’s a small price to pay for doing good things for Mother Earth and striking a blow against big evil corporations.
Oh, did we forget to mention that 95% all organic fruits and vegetables come from three massive eco-cartel farms in California? Turns out bullshit is a natural fertilizer, too.
global warming, climate change, goatsrus, Whole Foods, Costa Rica,
June 6th, 2007 at 11:10 am
After reading this first post I can tell this is going to be my new fav read in the mornings!
June 6th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Mark, how can you call yourself a Global Warming agnostic when you parrot the industry talking points on “lack of consensus” and “uncertainties in the models” and then make fun of people trying sincerely to address the issue by making personal sacrifices and taking personal responsibility.
I understand that this is designed as a humor website, but your constant editorializing against real solutions to the climate crisis, combined with your insistence on parroting out of date right-wing talking points like this one:
or this one
as gospel truth, you expose yourself as a kind of concern troll writ large.
June 6th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Gave ya a ThumbsUp Stumble and Bookmarked ya.
Great, will read when I can. So rare to find a sane Environmentalist blog.
And very funny too
June 6th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Thanks Mosley and KL. Good to have you aboard.
June 6th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Ben,
With all due respect, the two statements you chose to carp about are two of the sillier things you could get vexed about.
Re: “Inevitably, government involvement leads to inefficiency, increased bureaucracy and to higher costs in the future.”
I don’t think you need to look further than the Post Office, Social Security, the war in Iraq, Homeland Security, the war on drugs, Amtrak, the Big Dig in Boston, Yellowstone Park, New Orleans, Congress or the Bush White House to validate that statement.
Re: “It now appears that there is no consensus either among scientists or among politicians about the dangers of global warming.”
It seems weird to me that there is so much time and space given over to writing about whether there is or is not a consensus about global warming. If you have to argue that there’s a consensus, there probably isn’t one - otherwise you’d be arguing with yourself. I *can* understand where there might be a discussion about what exactly the consensus is about. Is it that the planet is warming? Is it about our role as humans in it? Or is it about what we should do about it?
The fact is, on almost every topic raised in the global warming debate - from ice thickness to polar bear deaths to hurricane frequency to the impact of solar flares - there are very smart people who are convinced about the merits on *both* sides of each of those topics. In that situation, it’s hard for me to be anything *but* agnostic regarding the underlying science.
I recycle, I’ve recently switched to using CFL bulbs and I am very concerned about the kind of world my son is going to grow up in. Part of that concern is that he (and I) are able to make our own choices and reasoned judgments.
I respect everyone’s right to be as green as they want to be. My problem comes in when that courtesy isn’t extended in the other direction.
To claim unassailable knowledge on a topic as complex as this, to me, merely exposes you as a calamitologist writ large.
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:27 am
Hi Mark,
Took a minute to get back to this, but I do really want to address the first point in some more detail.
But addressing the assumption that “government involvement leads to inefficiency, bureaucracy, and higher costs in the future”:
Let’s look at the Post Office. It’s actually pretty remarkable, when you think about it, that you can send a letter from anywhere in the US to anywhere else for just a few cents. What’s the cheapest alternative? Fed-Ex? UPS? Sure seems like the good ol’ USPS has them nailed.
Social Security is another example. Ask anyone (not rich) over 60 what they think about Social Security and they won’t talk about inefficiencies or waste, or long for private pension plans. They will tell you that they are relying on the govermnent guaranteed retirement savings plan that they have been paying into their whole lives, and which has served generations of Americans quite well. Only now is Social Security threatened, not by “inefficiency and bureaucracy” but by anti-tax zealots who can’t stand the idea of all the profit being LOST because old people aren’t losing their money playing the stock market.
Let’s look at Yellowstone Park, because the National Park system is one of the greatest monuments to the wondrous things that Americans can do by working together through our democratically elected goverment. Our national treasures are (relatively) safe from development, and are threatened not by “inefficiency and bureaucracy,” but by business minded developers who see all that open land and see dollar signs.
I could go on. In general, the problems I see with “government involvement” in industry are not created by inflexible government bureaucracies, but by profit-hungry corporations who view the bottom line as the bottom line.
Regarding your second point, I almost want to let that one slide — I don’t really want to get into arguing the difference between unanimity and consensus. But here’s the thing: I haven’t seen a single peer-reviewed article in a scientific journal that doesn’t agree with the “majority” or “consensus” position on global warming (i.e. that it’s happening and human carbon emissions are at least partly to blame). There’s Lindzen and Christy, sure, paid handsomely by business lobbies both of them. But they can’t publish their work because they know it’s bubkis. It’s not their job to do science, it’s their job to create confusion and make it look like there’s a debate. Do you think evolution is “just a theory” too? Do you question the consensus there? Because, as I’m sure you know, there are some scientists who disagree with the “majority” or “consensus” opinion that life changes and adapts to it’s environment through the process of natural selection.
September 7th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Hello
I’m really impressed!
G’night