Ok, time to get bitter and angry.
Earth Hour, eh? We all turn our lights off for an hour and this saves some carbon from going into the atmosphere. Whoopdeefuckindoo. The SMH, which sponsors the event in NSW at least, printed a huge colour supplement to celebrate this useless circlejerk, which probably contributed a large portion of its own carbon to the atmosphere.
Silliness. Everyone is ostensibly worried about climate change but no-one wants to give up their cosy accessories to actually do something about it. Every day I receive reams of paper in my mailbox, exhorting me to sign up for credit cards, buy real estate or inspect coupons for bargains. Every fortnight a publication weighing almost a kilogram arrives on my doorstep. This is called the Inner West Courier. If you’re in the Eastern Suburbs you’ll know the Wentworth Courier.
This magazine purports to be a local publication and does in fact contain some news from the council, community articles and assorted sponsored articles from local businesses. That’s fair enough, I suppose, but the rest of the damn thing is shiny colour advertisements for real estate. THIS IS NOTHING BUT ADVERTISING! The advertising does not subsidise the community articles, the community articles justify the printing of so many advertisements.
How many trees? How much carbon? How much litter covering our streets? How can these bastards get away with this?
How can we, as a society supposedly concerned with environmental issues, allow this blatant waste of resources to continue? Because of money, that’s why. Oh, and because we’re only actually concerned to the point of making conversation.
Everyone agrees we should do something, but we’re not prepared to agree that our current way of life is fundamentally unsustainable. Cars are fucking us, they aren’t going anywhere. The use of paper for almost anything except books is essentially unnecessary in the digital age.
Even aware of the problems with our planet, we are congenitally unable to take the steps required to solve them, simply because we’re too enamoured of our current lifestyle. Even Nero couldn’t fiddle like this.
So. I’m starting a collection of Couriers. You should too. Every time a new Courier is dropped on your doorstep, simply put it to one side. Add new ones to the stack. Ensure the stack is outside so it gets rained on. Once your stack is a metre high, take it to your local Courier office and present them with an invoice for storage and transportation of their rubbish. If that happens ten times, maybe they’ll start thinking about adopting new business methods.
