Trying to be green

I read that Queen Elizabeth asked Tony Blair to talk to Mr. Bush about his assinine position on the climate crisis.

I am wondering when I'll get unstuck from the assinine idea that it's better to see both sides or every side of an issue than to cling desperately to one position. In other words, when will I grow up and be able to distinguish right from wrong.

Global warming is as real as--well, if you entertain on the one hand the idea that the material world is real, on the other hand--oh, screw the one hand and other hand way of thinking, never mind that it was taught by my favorite professor in college. I would drive a Prius if I could get one with my checking account balance. I could barely buy a used bicycle with my current checking account balance.

No, man, global warming is real, I don't have to be a liberal to know it. I am not going to be a sucker for the denial and obfuscation of the Bush administration. Now, I read that high speed Internet screws up the mating rituals of squirrels. Never mind that the article that reported this appeared on April Fools Day.

Realizing that you can't do everything frees you up to do something. OK, great, but how do you choose the something you're going to do??? I know that eating beef makes the rainforest situation worse because one reason for cutting the forest down is to make grazing land for cattle to make into hamburgers for all our fast food chains. I was slipping up and eating a little beef. Just like I was slipping up and puffing on a few cigarettes. The point is not that we're damned for a little slipping up, the point is WHEN YOU KNOW WHAT'S RIGHT, YOU SHOULD DO IT. None of us should be eating cows or pigs. If we each allowed the epiphanies to happen, as Mary Tyler Moore did, the world would be well-fed and there would be less heart disease and cancer.

The thing is, it doesn't fly to say well I'm just one person and my solitary habits aren't going to make much difference. It is actually worthwhile to do ALL the right things you can think of to do, and this is the best anyone can do; if everyone did, we would change the world, as my ex-boyfriend Charlie used to say (I have a sweatshirt he made, which says: CHANGE THE WORLD, RESPECT EVERYONE).

I know none of this is new or unique, but the thing is, as Al Gore says in a Vanity Fair article, there are times when cliches bear repeating ad nauseum. We're in a fucking crisis, and saying you're going to start making changes tomorrow, tomorrow--well, granted, some changes are easier than others. Like getting that hybrid; it won't even park itself in my driveway tomorrow, I'd say unless I win the lottery but you know, I don't buy tickets.

---Harriet.