Butterflies

Use Libraries

It’s where they filmed the opening scene of Ghostbusters. So…

Libraries are a good idea, aren’t they? Free books for people, that’s a good idea. If literacy is the route out of poverty then libraries are like the Little Chefs dotted along the way. Except instead of selling inedible mass-produced crap they lend inedible literature. Including mass-produced crap by the likes of Stephanie Meyer and Dan Brown. But they’re good, libraries. They’re like massive depositories of fact and fiction. Like Reddit.

The first ever library was founded back in 1988, when a guy stole a book from another guy and then felt bad and gave it back. The guy whose book got stole liked the idea and started up a network of so-called Steal/No-Steal Book Borrow Emporiums. That man was J Edgar Library, and his network of Steal/No-Steal Book Borrow Emporiums became so associated with the great man that in time they took on his name, becoming known as J Edgars. After he died and his copyright lapsed they became known generically as Libraries – quite coincidentally, as no one noticed that was his surname.[Citation needed]

As good as libraries are for empowering Dickensian chimney sweeps, literating modern-day illiterates, and unisolating socially isolated people, it’s from an environmental Butterfly perspective that we turn our gaze upon them. Get this: Dan Brown inexplicably sold about 80 million copies of The Da Vinci Code, which means about 80 million copies have been printed, all as bad as each other. That’s a lot of paper, all of which used to be a lot of trees sucking up a lot of carbon dioxide. If even half the people who bought and binned copies had instead gone to their local libraries… they still wouldn’t have read it yet. That’d be a hell of a waiting list, 40 million people. But it would have saved a load of paper. You know what I’m saying.

Borrow books that already exist instead of having new ones made for you all the time. And apologies for those first three paragraphs. They wasted your time as well as mine. Could’ve done this one in a tweet.

Use libraries

 

Save resources

 

Plus you might see a ghost

 

Related Blog Posts

Alone in electric dreams

Alone in electric dreams

After 11 months of dithering, three nights of barely any sleep, and one day of sweating with guilt in a showroom, I finally bought an electric car. Here’s how it’s been:

Public charging, it turns out, is a piece of piss.

The Big Plastic Count: World’s Worst Typo Successfully Avoided

The Big Plastic Count: World’s Worst Typo Successfully Avoided

Among the million things we need to do to avert climate breakdown, kicking the arse out of plastic is one of the most urgent. Plastic comes from dirty-bad oil, gas and coal, using about 4.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions and about 6% of coal-fired electricity in its production. We’re bringing on the sixth mass extinction for the sake of shrink-wrapped broccoli.

Doing nothing for the environment

Doing nothing for the environment

In my withered, Covid-infested state I find myself doing less and less for the big battles we need to win: Yer climate breakdown, yer rise of fascism, yer eating the rich. But recently I’ve discovered a critical area of climate activism that requires even less effort than doing very little: Doing nothing at all! By which I mean I’m buying less shit.

9 life hacks for ignoring the IPCC climate report

9 life hacks for ignoring the IPCC climate report

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the IPCC – issued its latest report this week, pointing out how monumentally fucked we are because we like cars, burgers and mass extinctions. It makes for grim reading – but only if you actually read it. Here are nine ways you can avoid giving it any thought at all!

An almost buyer’s guide to electric cars 2: Electric car boogaloo

An almost buyer’s guide to electric cars 2: Electric car boogaloo

Desperate to avoid petrol I hired an electric car for the purposes of hard science. I requisitioned a Renault Zoe for a few days, rented a lab coat and three pens for its pocket, bought a clipboard outright and began the grand experiment. The key tests were how well the battery lasted with my commute and the business of social work, how quickly it drained when parked overnight, how big a pain in the arse public charge points are, and how often I’d have to use the buggers.

An almost buyer’s guide to electric cars, maybe

An almost buyer’s guide to electric cars, maybe

Back in the arse-end of 2019 I finally ditched my car, having decided humanity was marginally more important than an easy commute. But then Covid hit. And hit me right in the face. Almost two years later I’m still having trouble walking, still working fully from home and only just starting full time hours. I need a car. Which means I need an electric car, which means a lot of expense…

Climate anxiety: The self-righteousest of all anxieties

Climate anxiety: The self-righteousest of all anxieties

And so we find ourselves on the eve of COP26, where highfalutin delegates from around 200 countries will come together in Glasgow to either unite the world to tackle climate change or to talk shit, greenwash their failures and prove virtue signalling is a real thing after all. In preparation I’ve been hard at work on my soul-crushing climate anxiety. This requires long nights lying awake fretting, long days doomscrolling social media. It requires your heart pounding against your ribs so hard it actually makes a noise.

A three-legged carbon footprint

A three-legged carbon footprint

My grand return to the world of disability hasn’t been great for carbon footprinting. The early, housebound stage was amazing, obviously. The plus side of not leaving my bed for months is that it reduced my emissions – and my activity, social life and hope – to zero. But as I got more with it, public transport was no longer an option…

Blog archives

Share This