Barry Smith: Saving the Earth
Think your actions don’t matter? Nonsense! Here are a few simple things you can do to save the Earth:
* Encase the Earth in a giant Tupperware container, thus ensuring its freshness for a long time.
* Or, better still ? laminate it.
* Recycle. I don’t mean take a few beer cans to the recycling center. I mean actually melt down cans, bottles, and cardboard boxes and make other things you need out of them. Like, make a machine that will save the Earth, for example.
* Walk to work. Without shoes. Unless you made the shoes out of melted down beer cans, bottles, and cardboard boxes.
* Each year the average temperature of the Earth increases by a fraction of a degree. This is bad. Leave your refrigerator open whenever possible.
* Have a bunch of kids. Tell THEM to save the damn Earth if they love it so much. You’re tired.
* Schedule an intervention. Tell the Earth that you love it, and it hurts you to see it suffer, but that ultimately it has to save itself. It has to WANT to change.
* Cool your house with solar power. I’m not sure how, but it must be possible.
* Check your house for aerosol cans containing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which destroy the ozone layer. Puncture each can with a nail or other sharp object, thereby releasing the CFCs and insuring the continued gainful employment of those who make their living telling you how bad the ozone layer is.
* Make your own condoms. Try using those six-pack rings that birds are always getting tangled up in.
* Run your dishwasher only with a full load, and use the energy-saving setting to dry dishes. If you don’t own enough dishes to get to a full load, consider padding it with other things around the house that need cleaning. Like dusty computer keyboards. Or dusty TV sets. Or dusty pets.
* Reduce unwanted junk mail. If you have a post office box, simply push the junk mail through to the other side. If you have a mail box, try lighting the junk mail on fire before carrying it in the house. Those slick, glossy hardware store ads burn in pretty colors.
* Think alibi. Is there a credible witness who will testify that you were with them the entire time? And what about cash? How much can you get your hands on, in case you need to head to Mexico for a while? And don’t sign any, uh … oh, sorry … that’s leftover from the “A Few Simple Things You Can Do To Save Your Ass” column I did last week.
* Leaving the tap running while brushing your teeth can waste as much as 5 gallons of water. To help save the Earth, stop thinking of it as “wasted” water, and instead consider it an investment in the future. After all, how can you save the Earth without teeth?
* Do the Earth and everyone on it a huge favor and stop calling people “Dawg.”
* Read the same paper for the entire month. Preferably the one with this column in it. How much can happen in a month, anyway?
* Over a billion trees are used to make disposable diapers every year. If you want to save the Earth, use cloth diapers. Even if you don’t have a child.
* Plant a tree. Outside.
* There are about 500 million automobiles on the Earth, burning an average of 2 gallons of fuel a day. Turning the volume on your car radio down may not technically help save the Earth, but it will make our fleeting, choking moments left here a little more bearable.
* The average American makes about 3.5 pounds of trash a day. The average American talks about 23 pounds of trash a day. Eat your garbage and shut your Pop Tart hole.
* If you throw away two aluminum cans, you waste more energy than 1,000,000,000 (one billion) of the world’s poorest people use a day. Stack them up against your wall in a neat, decorative pyramid instead. The world’s poor will thank you.
* In one minute, 50 acres of rainforest are destroyed. Make this stop happening. Don’t waste time on the petty details of “how,” just get to it. You know, all this time you waste talking about it you could have actually DONE it. Jeez.
[Barry Smith’s column runs in The Aspen Times on Monday and Thursday. His e-mail address is barry@Irrelativity.com, and his very own Web page is at http://www.Irrelativity.com]