It all started with the concern for the environment hence all the hullabaloo over everything and everybody going Eco-this and Eco-that, though I suspect most of the time it has more to do with economic sense than environmental sense. For example, can you voluntarily make employees sweat it out without air-con, in the middle of the afternoon in sweltering heat, all in the name of Climate Change. I still have it better, as I sit on the ground floor and can put on the fan when I am dripping all over the desk – imagine the poor guys n gals on the fourth floor (the top floor, directly under the sun hence the hottest) have to make do without the fans, as it is the newest floor on the block, and isn’t fully occupied nor equipped! All I know (I think I know) is that they care two hoots about the environment or the employees and only about the electricity bill! Come on man, I work here….!
But all the concern about Climate change is not all hot air. After all there are giant icebergs the size of Manhattan*2 (read as twice the size of Manhattan) floating near Australia (hey maybe we could all migrate to icebergs and live on giant floating blocks of ice – that would solve the issue of all the low lying cities and land getting swallowed by the rising sea – wait a minute – wouldn’t the ice berg melt and melt fast due to rising temperature – isn’t the iceberg the source of the extra water in the sea? Looks like the only silver lining to the iceberg is a Titanic re-run!). Travel brochures advertising the famous Alaska tours where you get to see glaciers calving into the ocean might be relegated to museums as there would be no glacier, instead, maybe a slightly cold river? Or how about Hindu pilgrims always in the search of the source of the mighty river Ganges would be in perennial search, as the Gangotri glacier shies away further and further into the Himalayas. In no time, the only mention of glaciers would be, not in nature but on mineral water bottle, who will try to sell to you millions of year old water trapped with frozen rivers, now conveniently packaged in clear plastic bottle with fancy names and marketing.
So started the misguided so called eco-friendly practices at our work. First they stop the shops and food courts inside from stocking or distributing plastic bags. So when you go buy hmm…. Let’s say a couple of packs of 2lt juice bottles, a couple of packs of noddles, a toothpaste, some hair gel, a couple of bars of chocolate, a packet of sugar, and throw in a magazine for good measure from the conveniently located convenience store on campus and you are at the counter paying for your stuff, you realize, shoot, you forgot to get your shoulder bag and the cashier goes, umm… sorry, no plastic bag… you got two options, five flimsy paper baggies or you can buy this outrageous tiny orange semi-cloth bag for an astronomical sum! So you decide to be eco-friendly (by that I mean economically friendly to your wallet) and opt for the free paper baggies (more like brown paper large envelopes) and the moment you lift them up, pop the bottom of two bags gives way, spewing your stuff all over the floor! You want to take a take away? No can so, you see no plastics in campus, so no packing, so no take away!
As strange climatic changes takes places, cities across the world are witnessing extraordinary swings in seasons and temperatures – either it’s too cold or too hot, either it’s drought or floods. What with nations like China attempting to master the ultimate weapon of controlling the weather taking a page from the movie ‘The Avengers’ wherein Sean Connery attempts to hold the world hostage threatening dire weather ends up with Beijing receiving 16 million pounds of snow! When misguided eco-friendliness turns out to more economically motivated, corn and soy meant to be grown as food grains across America and Latin America are conveniently turned into ethanol and marketed with aplomb as being a positive step towards being eco-friendly and promoting alternative fuel at the cost of spiraling food inflation and shortage. This brings about an interesting dilemma – to feed or to go green. To misquote a famous French Princess – “If you don’t have corn, drink ethanol”, after all it’s the eco-friendly option!
As if no plastics wasn’t enough, some bright blokes hit upon another bright idea and decide to frisk all employees coming into work one fine days, declaring it as 0 (Zero) plastic day and god forbids, if you happen to carry your lunch or dirty delicates (don’t ask, but we do have a Laundromat on campus and no it’s not free), you would be forced to give up your plastic bag and transfer the contents to a paper bag, that you have to buy on the spot or risk having to carry your dirty delicates in full public view! Well, I do not know what is worse, re-using plastic bags or buying fresh paper bags to replace them? Well, the latest in vogue is the Zero tissue day, where one fine day, after utilizing the john as usual hygienic practice demand, I proceeded to wash my hands and for a good measure my face too…. And then reached up to the tissue dispenser… and to my horror of horrors read the following “A handkerchief a day keeps the axe away” (a handkerchief??? The last I had heard of one was when I had one pinned to my shirt in kinder garden – who carries a handkerchief nowadays?). Ah well at least the electric hand dryer is working and I take my place in the queue that has formed in front of the dryer (as it takes significantly longer to even give you a false feeling of dryness). So while I am waiting and dripping all over in the queue for the hand dryer, I began longing for the good ol’ days where a pull of the dispenser would dispense super soft paper towels which would make love to my face (wait, that didn’t come out right, but you get what I mean) I read the proud declaration on the dryer “electric drier are eco-friendly and more sanitary than using paper towels”. So is cutting down trees for paper towels worse or burning coal for the hand dryer worse? I just hope they don’t decide to do away with the toilet papers!
All said and done, climate change is real and is here to stay and there really is no easy answer. With almost all natural disasters being blamed on climate change be it tsunamis, hurricanes, cyclones, wild forest fires, earthquakes, volcanoes or even the acne on my forehead! With disaster movies like 2012 ending in disaster (both on screen and at the box office), with food scarcity and inflation being a real threat for poor nations, with energy security prompting rash and unruly behavior by the developed nations, pinning all hopes on Hopenhagen proved utterly hopeless and not much progress can be expected next year at Mexico either. You see eco-friendly (environment) stands no chance before eco-friendly (economy). The only change that can prevent climate change is ME! Does that mean I re-consider driving to work everyday and take the public transport? Nah… after all great revolutions begin with small steps – one tissue paper a day!
Hope you haven’t printed this out to read…. Who cares if you have to squint and strain your eyes to read it on the screen – it’s the eco-friendly way. And they put up huge A3 sized posters printed in full color on glossy thick paper all over the place, advising employees, to “Think before you Print”!
-Ani
Dec 21 2009
Written for “The 13th Thought”
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