With our goals sorted and our plans in place we’re ready for the next step in the grand Zero revolution. Top of the list: saving the planet from humanity, and humanity from itself. With that in mind I watched a couple of movies.
An Inconvenient Truth was a notable wisp among the swirling gases that formed The Zero project, giving me the sense of personal responsibility for global change that has, over the years, progressed from borderline integrity to certifiable delusions of grandeur. I recently did the doubler, rewatching the original and finally seeing the squeakquel, and have been living in a state of near-panic ever since. They’re a powerful combo in the context of evil dickweed/Mr Potter/Biff Tannen/the FBI guys from Die Hard Donald Trump, the permatanned, racist oranguKlan who thinks climate change is a hoax cooked up by the Chinese. With his assault on the environment, as well as on truth and decency and the first amendment and women and Muslims and Mexicans and African-Americans and disabled people and footballers and school children, and really anyone who isn’t him and that one daughter he wants to bone, we are hosed unless we do something ourselves. And it’s going to take a lot of somethings, and all of our selves.
We need to figure what we can do personally, locally and globally. I’m starting with what I think of as the man in the mirror: me. I’d thought I was doing alright because that’s how complacency works, bigging myself up for reducing, reusing and recycling and for switching to renewable energy. But the recent assault on single-use plastic made me realise at least half of my ass was out of the game. I’d drifted into single-use cleaning wipes that aren’t biodegradable, plastic rice pouches for lazy lunches, and single-use plastic straws to accompany my gin-based slide into functional alcoholism. I’ve cut all that shit out, and restarted my unhappy trudge towards veganism, a lifestyle as environmentally friendly as it is socially unpopular.
That’s all very admirable and will undoubtedly save much of the world – you can nominate me for an OBE here – but there are bigger Tofish to fry. CO2 is the big thing, and the biggest thing I can do there is ditch my car. I’ve cut a way down on emissions thanks to a new electric fleet at work, reducing my filthy diesel car to just the 9-mile round trip to and from the office. That adds up to about a half ton of CO2 a year, a relatively small but still unforgivable amount of shite I’m putting into the air. I’ve spent much of my post-squeakquel panic looking into getting an electric car myself but even second hand they’re pricier than I can manage. I looked into public transport, but with the state of my scabby little spine and the length of my compressed hours now is not the time to add an hour to my day. People, I’m going to continue killing the planet until prices come down, and in the meantime will go for the lousy, unconvincing compromise of carbon credits.
There’s my half ton of commuter CO2 to atone for, another half ton from flights to the motherland, and about another ton from wintering on the continent. Alta Vista reckons a mature tree absorbs about 48 pounds of CO2 a year. There’s 2,000 pounds in a ton, so maths reckons I need to plant about 95 trees a year. Admittedly, they won’t be mature – but then neither will I. Zing!
Kidding aside, I really am emotionally stunted. It’s killing my interpersonal relationships. One Tree Planted plants one tree for one dollar, planting big-ass forests of one-trees for one dollars in Africa, Asia and a couple of Americas. Eight bucks a month will be enough to undo my filthy, dirty, sell-out drive to work; about 3% of the monthly cost of paying up an electric car.
With my whole ass back involved on the personal level it was a shock to realise I’m doing basically nothing on the local and global levels. People, this cannot continue. Much like this blog entry; it’s already too long. We’ll cover the global shit in the squeakquel. In the meantime, Elon Musk do something to bring his prices down. Zing!
Photo credit: The Zero/20th Century Fox
