The Rocky Mountain Collegian

March 21st, 2007

Things you can do to reduce CO2!

(NOTE: Please realize, readers, that this article is entirely a joke, and not be taken seriously (like man-made global warming).

—

Well, I’ve been trying to avoid this for some time now, but the mainstream media and Al Gore want me to bow to their religion of man-made global warming. I have been approached as to how I, your beautiful blogger, can help stop the secular Apocalypse from coming to fruition.

You see, according to Al Gore and the man-made global warming enthusiasts like Larry and Laurie David, CO2 is a big, if not the only factor that contributes to global warming. If we as individuals can reduce our CO2 emissions, we can help prevent man-made global warming. Sounds like a sweet deal, huh?

Worry not, my lovelies, for I have taken action. Presented here is a list to how I am combating this nuisance of man-made global warming. Please take note though, this list is entirely my own. If I encounter my exact words, or even 25 percent of them somewhere on a Wikipedia entry, far, far away, in some intellectual professor’s book, or possibly even just put on a message board in the entrails of “The Internets,” I will punish whoever is responsible in ways that cannot be imagined, even by Saddam Hussein!

So let’s get this checklist as to how I am combating global warming ready:

- Reduce carbon dioxide output:

Well, let’s see. To reduce CO2 emissions, I am currently working on quite a few projects:

1. I don’t talk a lot. See, talking releases CO2, which is apparently harmful to our precious ozone layer and our polar bears on melting icebergs (even though the plants need it to photosynthesize). So I have gone back to my caveman roots, and when among my friends (girls included), I do mostly hand gestures to show my emotions, feelings, and desires. When it becomes absolutely necessary, I will grunt (you know, like *UNGGGGHHHH* with lots of feeling).
2. I don’t sing in the shower. While very tempting, and after having many singing lessons (if you count Music Theory class as a singing lesson), I find it better to just not sing at all in the shower, for the good of my sleeping roommates, my own eardrums, and the cat 3 miles down the road. I know, folks, it is oh so tantalizing to sing “I am man, hear me roar” from the Burger King Manthem, but I have to resist, because I have a planet to save! I talk to myself instead, it wastes less CO2, and cuts down on noise pollution (which leads to audio warming)…
3. I use AIM. AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, any IM service: I use it and abuse it. Not only does this give me an excuse to use words like “lol,” “rofl,” and “n00b,” it cuts my CO2 emission through communication to 0 percent!

- Stop wasting resources:

1. I don’t wash my clothes… for a long time. Is this the seventh time this shirt has been worn to an ultimate Frisbee workout/gathering? It’ll work as an undershirt to a fancy restaurant! Not only does this cut down on water usage (after all, we just might run out of the stuff real soon!), but it also cuts down on my Tide usage (chemicals are icky).
2. I don’t waste paper. In fact, I don’t use paper at all. Those twenty page papers due three days ago? They’re sitting in immaculate condition in my printer tray, ink-free. This is also why I went with blogging: it’s like writing in the editorials, but without killing trees to print the newspaper.
3. I don’t kill the plants, the things that need all of our wretched CO2 to live. I go for the tasty barbecue ribs, the occasional bratwurst, and the fashionable T-bone steak instead. Salads are for people that want to hurt our environment, the insensitive fools!
4. I don’t recycle! All my Coke cans, newspapers, and glass bottles all get thrown into one bag with all the rest of my garbage. See, this answers two problems! I use less plastic for garbage bags if I only use one, and it reduces the amount of trips I have to make to my dumpster, thus cutting down on my CO2 output whilst breathing.

- Drive an eco-friendly car:

1. I drive a Focus (insert Ford Focus jokes here). Actually, that’s a joke in itself: mine is in the shop. No functioning car, no CO2 expelled into the air!
2. I don’t drive the Stretch Ford Excursion you see driving down Laurel. Imagine the gas mileage on that thing! But also imagine the bowling lane you could add to it, and you can see why people want to ride that thing, let alone drive it. While I won’t drive it due to the eco-guilt I’d put on myself, I’d pay for a ride on that massive car, however. For one thing, how many times are you going to ride in a Stretch Ford Excursion? Second, I’d be carpooling, which is great, one car for many people!
3. I don’t drive a Prius! It’s hard to believe, but making a Prius does more harm than good to the environment. The special nickel battery for our eco-enemy Prius begins its journey in Sudbury, Ontario (home of the infamous Superstack) where it is smelted. It then goes 10,000 miles on a container ship (roundtrip let’s hope). It then is sent to a nickel refinery in South Wales. Then it goes to China where it is turned into nickel foam. Eventually it ends up in Japan where it is finally made into the battery that makes a Prius what it is: a Prius (besides the ugly design and cramped seating).

Imagine the fuel and energy it took just to get that nickel from Canada to Japan! 10,000 miles, that’s quite a journey, not to mention the inhospitable landscape smelting this nickel created. So inhospitable in fact, that NASA is driving moon buggies on this terrain as it is the closest terrain on earth that represents the lunar landscape! I’m not making this stuff up. It takes more pollution to make a Prius than a Hummer, way more. Is it just me, or is the H2 suddenly looking better by the second?

So there you have it, comrades. I have gone into excruciating detail as to what I am doing every day to combat this menace called man-made global warming. Feel free to follow in my footsteps to reduce your carbon footprint, unlike Al Gore, who’s flying around in “big old jet airliners” (Steve Miller Band kudos) to tell us that CO2 emissions are evil.

Small side note: The Oscars going green is totally bogus. If they really want to cut down on their CO2 emissions and go green, they’ll ban all acceptance speeches. They should also do away with making Oscar awards at all. Heck, just put the whole ceremony online, it’s a helluva lot greener than what they had in mind.

So the next time some Greenpeace activists ask what you’re doing to combat man-made global warming, you’ll have ammo to respond with (assuming you don’t have a gun to begin the conversation with, silly!), and not end up being talked into buying carbon credits/offsets.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a green life to live. If you want to talk about natural global warming though (you know, the one where it isn’t our fault, is out of our control to stop, and has scientific proof to back it up), I’m all ears.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 at 11:15 am and is filed under Editable Constitution. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.