I love The Onion. I love the dry wit and biting sarcasm and satire. I love that last week they posted a story that gets right to the heart of my frustrations about trying to live more eco-consciously.So I set a goal last year to ride public transportation to work once a week. How's that workin out? Not so hot. I've had bus days. I had one just last week, in fact. I've enjoyed my bus days. I can, however, count those bus days on two hands and perhaps one toe. I can blame my schedule. I can say I needed to quickly get multiple places in a short amount of time and that necessitates a car. I can wine about how hot/cold it is (ironic complaint, re: my initial motivations for public transport), even though I *have* done it in the rain and snow and heat. Regardless of all these excuses, it's not good enough. I have friends who ride the bus all day every day and I know it can be done. In the meantime, I just keep spouting off that if Salt Lake were a true urban environment, more dense, better routes, blahblahblah.
On that note...The Onion: "I'm doing my inconsequential part for the environment..."
By using mass transit or riding my bike whenever possible, I may not be able to influence greenhouse-gas emissions standards or reduce mass global addiction to fossil fuels one iota. [...] Restricting my household energy use to non-peak hours does not make me capable of reversing temperature changes in the gulf stream that even now have begun to throw the world's climate out of equilibrium. The question, however, is not "What can't I do?" but rather, "What can I do?"The answer: next to nothing. (read more)
