Letters to the Editor
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how to make him green
make him get a vasectomy. The single biggest impact he can have on this planet is procreating. Stop that and you'll do us all a favor.
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may I retract what I said about burning copper wire?
I think I said in my previous letter that I couldn't tell by the LW's description of her boyfriend's habits how bad he was to the earth.
I take that back--just did some reading and realized how bad burning copper wire really is for the planet. If your boyfriend is burning a lot of wire, the land he's burning it on can become a superfund site. Cleanup costs at a minimum $500 and usually runs into the thousands. The stuff you're releasing--dioxins and heavy metals--are NOT being released by any law-abiding big corporations anywhere in the United States, because it's illegal to release these controlled substances.
If I knew someone that was doing this, I would threaten to report him to the authorities unless they stopped their behavior. Really, the site of the burning should be cleaned up too. The pollutants released from low-temperature burning are major, and will remain in the surrounding soil, if untreated, for many generations.
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A grain of sand
Your boyfriend has to stop thinking in terms of him being a lone grain of sand, and think instead of being part of a very large beach. There are 6,602,224,175 people in the world (July 2007 est. according to World Factbook).
If every individual in the world starts doing just one thing to help the planet, we as individuals could make a hell of a difference. But nothing will get change if all people have your boyfriend's outlook.
Case in point, in my home state in the 1970s they put in place a 10 cents bottle return policy. Soon after the highways were no longer strewed with cans and bottles. People started recycling them instead of throwing them out the car windows. Now our state highways look so much cleaner than states that don't have our bottle return policy. Individuals do make a difference!
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Miz Green to AC in DC
Now you know why I pitched such a fit over this. I did the best I could to mitigate the damage--shoveled up all the ashes and about 3" of subsoil, and placed them in a sealed container that I will turn in the next Amnesty Day we have. I told my neighbor that if she observes Himself (couldn't think up another name to call him at that time, which didn't contain profanity) ever doing that again, she is to call the Sheriff's Dept & make a report.
And many of the rest of y'all are correct that there are Other Issues involving respect and consideration on his part...and excess sanctimony on mine. I do try and keep it to a minimum.
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Is it Really About the Environment?
You've been with this guy five years and you're still just a girl friend? He didn't develop his attitude towards the environment overnight any more than you developed yours. Maybe you're looking for a reason to leave him and saying, "He has no environmental conscience," sounds better than, "I have no engagement ring." My experience has been that as soon as one party becomes hell-bent on changing the other the relationship is pretty much over. Maybe the best thing you can do for both of you is move on.
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You are investing far more in the environment than him, so do him a favor and quit him
LW - you go out of your way to be 'green' and a good steward of the environment, but are completely unwilling to go out of your way even a little to accept your bf as he is. Your contemptuous reference to himself, his 'badness' vs. your 'goodness', and how he doesn't take orders from you even when you are so obviously right and righteous...well, I don't really see why you'd keep banging your head against the wall of such an unfulfilling relationship when clearly you are so much more fulfilled doing what you can for the environment and then parading/flaunting/extolling those actions for the admiration and followership of others.
I am always suspicious of people who need to flaunt their good works. It seems as though your good works are done for the sake of the credit, attention and feelings of superiority they bring you, vs. any real deeply held personal value that you have. How can you justify having so much respect and understanding for the environnment, and not for the man you've loved for five years?
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Shoot him
No wait, that would be adding CO2 to the atmosphere in the form of vaporized gunpowder. Better to stab him, then the only CO2 emanating from the event is the exertion you'll have from the movement of your arm, his remaining breaths, and of course the panic you'll have raising your heart rate.
Then, either dice him up into little small pieces to distribute into a nice garden, or get a bowling ball and a bag and tie him to it and allow him to fertilize the ocean with his remains. Either way is better than letting him continue to exhale CO2 into the atmosphere.
That turned out a little morbid actually. Originally when I read the title, I thought he should have children, but the I read he already had a daughter. So obviously since he has no regard for her future, and there weren't any more details about this sop in your message, it didn't appear that he was going to have any remaining use to the human race and he should probably be darwinized, perhaps before he does the same to the rest of humanity.
Of course there's a counter argument to everything he says, and your 39 year old boyfriend may yet live to see a time when a billion people need to be moved from their homes because of rising sea levels. And then will be a good time for you to look at your aging boyfriend and say, "I told you so."
So don't stab him, that would let him off too easy. Instead, a better idea would be to take a picture of him doing all the CO2 producing things he does and put it up on Flickr so future generations can know what not to do, and who to blame for their problems.