Letters to the Editor
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Bollix, bollix, bollix
Listen, it might you feel better to unplug your electric toothbrush charger (!), but that's all it will do. People like this are just trying to make you feel better about the fact that you live in the most unsustainable society on the planet. There are no "5 Simple Steps" to save the planet. There aren't 55. There aren't 555. American lifestyles are unsustainable, but happy-faced environmentalists like this like to help you assauge your guilt by thinking you are making a difference. Well, you're not. You start a "No-idling" zone at your school; the power company builds a coal-fired plant down the road. Which do you suppose makes the difference? By all means, protest the new coal plant, and drive your SUV to get there. Hypocrites, hypocrites, hypocrites.
And though it's extremely unpopular to point out, energy is an extremely elastic commodity, and it's worldwide. So guess what: if you switch off your living room light, you haven't "saved" anything. All it means is that a factory in China that is producing your Reebok aerobics shoes is going to use that energy to light up the room where they're making shoelaces. And what do you think happens when the Chinese workers decide they'd like some of the piece of the pie for themselves? Well, we're beginning to find out. How much did your last tank of gas cost?
Nothing YOU can do is going to make a damn bit of difference. And, even if 50 million of you do band together and, I don't know, save a forest or something, the lumber companies will just cut down some rainforest in Indonesia instead.
The light at the end of the tunnel is that all this "progress" is unsustainable; something has to give. I don't know what and I don't know when, but it's all going to come crashing down, quickly or slowly, someday. It's not going to be pretty, but I guess maybe you'll feel better about it if you've kept your tires well inflated.