It's Earth Day, Time to be Rational

Happy Earth Day! Now, why give a shit?

I mean, why should Earth Day matter at all? I'm glad there are people like Scos actively questioning the point of group-think-movements like Earth Hour or tea bagging. It's worth questioning if something like global warming is real and then questioning further if it matters. Otherwise, we're just following along blindly, which is cause for 95% of Daily Show's jokes as it stands.

Maybe I've been watching too much Planet Earth. Or maybe it was the Summer $4/gal gas prices tied, in part, to high consumption / low supply. Either way, it's a fact that we're using up our resources quicker than they can be replenished (if at all). We can argue about exactly when, but oil and minerals as a whole have very real finite lifetimes. All this had made me think twice about how I'm contributing to the problem.

The question is, what can I do to make a difference? Turn off lights when I leave a room? Got it. Recycle? Check. Bike instead of drive to town? Feels good. But to practice what I preach and question before acting, what difference do these examples really make? Lights off is a good in theory but doesn't make a huge difference. 9 times out of 10, your schools or employers end up combining the contents of the blue and brown bins when you aren't looking. And driving less, while significant, is a necessary evil given our current infrastructure (see: Upper Valley).

One thing that doesn't get talked about a lot*, however, is food, and in particular, livestock. According to Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore Dr R.K. Pachauri,
1 kg of beef is responsible for the equivalent of the amount of CO2 emitted by the average European car every 250 km, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for 20 days. Over two-thirds of the energy goes towards producing and transporting the animals' feed. (More stats / article here). Seems like if I want to make a difference, it's much easier to give up meat than lights or driving.

Putting money where my mouth is (cliche #2 today, sorry), ErikJ and I will spend one month as vegetarians. Yes, theoretically going vegan is the best, but who do we look like, Gandhi Jared Leto? We'll use the blog to track our pain progress and hopefully raise awareness around doing our part to consume a little less.

Or, to put it simply, if we consume less, we get more cute animal videos:


*There's a new movie coming out about food processing (pic above, link here) which should be interesting and probably talk a little about the environmental angle, though I have a feeling it'll be a lot more Fast Food Nation-like.

UPDATE: See the Countdown to Meat on sidebar.
Also, based on questions, I will be eating dairy, eggs and fish. Sorry Leto.

Earth Hour

The following is an excerpt from an actual email (slightly altered to protect the identity of my employer) I received this afternoon:

"Please be advised that Beutsche Dank will be participating in the World Wildlife Fund's annual Earth Hour event this Saturday, March 28. Facility staff will begin switching off all nonessential lighting... at approximately 4:00PM.

Beutsche Dank’s participation in Earth Hour will contribute to increasing our collective understanding and awareness of the Beutsche Dank Sustainability Program. [Yes, that's the one where you don't use the milk for cereal.] The event will also support the Dank’s global goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2012."

Earth Hour? This struck me as a spectacularly idiotic idea, so I visited the website http://www.earthhour.org/ to find out more. There, I learned that it was even sillier than I first imagined:

"For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming. WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009."


(Watch the celebrities make a difference as they search for meaning in their empty lives; watch the brainwashed children regurgitate alarmist propaganda!)

Like a mosquito in a nudist colony, I thought: "Where do I begin?" But then, right as I was about to dive in with fork and knife, I received my daily Best of the Web email from James Taranto and, as luck would have it, he's organizing a last-minute counterprotest:

"Reader, if you are against global-warming hysteria, high taxes, socialized medicine and a weak foreign policy, Sunday is your day. Show how you feel about the issues by turning on your lights in the evening and leaving them on until you go to bed. If you go out for a drive after dark, make sure you turn your headlights on too.

Granted, the Earth Hour people have a head start on us. They started planning this months ago, whereas we're giving you all of 48 hours notice. Yet we think the outlook is bright for this effort. Tell your friends, tell them to tell their friends, and so on, and we'll bet millions of people across the country will turn their lights on Sunday night.

If no one will listen to the silent majority, let's at least make sure they see us."

Where do you stand? Vote with your light switch. And enjoy the weekend.