Listen to any debate about global warming these days, and you can guarantee there'll be at least one cynic who says that it's all a load of poppycock, and that the whole thing is a sneaky government plot to squeeze even more money out of us under the pretence of saving us from ourselves. Either that, or they'll ask how one puny little person composting his potato peelings can possibly make a difference when China is building two coal-fired power stations a week, and all those billions of people in India are forsaking their elephants for Jaguars. It's no wonder so many of us are confused and not knowing what to do.
That's how I felt about it until Tuesday. Confused, and not knowing what to do.
On Tuesday, I discovered that I do make a difference.
I left the bathroom light on by mistake for two hours, and it rained like billyo. The sky was as black as a bag. There was a river going down the road near us, and some poor people got stuck in their cars and some others in Shrewsburyshire got cut off altogether.
I'd like to tell those people that I'm very sorry.
Because there was nobody else in the house for most of yesterday, I made a point of turning off everything that didn't need to be on. As a consequence, it hardly rained at all. I think experts call it a causal link. No matter what they call it, I'm convinced that I do make a difference, and that if we all made a big effort, global warming would be over by next Thursday and we could all relax and stop worrying about it.
I'm keeping a log of how I'm doing. It's on a little recycled paper pad held onto the side of the fridge with an organic magnet. It's going pretty well so far, and my carbon footprint has already shrunk to a size 8. This morning I consolidated my ablutions by having a shave and cleaning my teeth while I was having a shower. I did think about having a widdle in there at the same time, because the dirty water from the shower goes out through the wall and into the big pipe from the potty, but I decided that piddling on my own feet while stone-cold sober was taking things a bit too far.
I'm going to try collecting the methane from the dogs in a container of some sort and then see if I can rig up some kind of hose to the cooker so that we can switch from natural gas to unnatural gas.
The other thing that I think might be worth trying is to carry a small tree or a suitably-sized shrub in a papoose type thing fastened to my chest (a bit like those stripy Mothercare things that you carry a little baby in), so that all the carbon dioxide I breathe out is turned straight back into oxygen on the spot and I can breathe it in again. Come to think of it, if it was a tree that produced something edible, like cherries, or apples, I could kill two birds with one stone.
(Shamelessly stolen from somewhere else...)
Wurzel
