I just got the word: no carbon offset purchases for my office this year. With my term as green czar ending in May, I was hoping to be able to push through this historic legislation.
PS - I'm having a lot of trouble believing/verifying some of the claims made in that article Bart posted about Todd Palin's snowmachine racing. If anyone has an info, let me know.
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you're a green czar? what does that entail/do you get some type of hat/cape/weapon/authority?
ReplyDeleteOk, so technically the title is "Green Champion." And actually, yeah, the nearly 90-year-old dude who founded the office that became my office (after it got bought around a few times) gave me a hilarious/hideous lime green hat, the kind you could imagine getting for free at some golf event.
ReplyDeleteMy power: I get to ask for stuff.
We had an election, and even though I hadn't been here for a year and I was still an intern I won. My main interest was in trying to push through carbon offsets. This idea was met with approval at first but as of Monday died. I also get all the recycling questions, which is unfortunate because I don't know a whole lot about recycling.
I also helped us stop buying things like plastic forks, and I've put out a few memos that basically stay "Stop fucking using styrofoam cups and bring in a coffee mug/thermos. It's not that fucking hard." I've also been putting out tips to go greener every week or two.
Basically, it sucks, because no one gives a shit. Although there's some political aspect to it - you have your occasional global warming denier - mostly it's just that people are lazy. "Being green is great, but not if I have to take a shorter shower, or buy more expensive food, or take the subway to baseball games," seems to be the sentiment. So it's frustrating.
Yesterday we were in a meeting and my being green champion came up. I had sent out something about water conservation in the morning, and one of my coworkers, sarcastically but without the slightest bit of malice (he's totally incapable of such) said, "So if I cut my shower by six seconds we're gonna save the world, right?" And as I really thought about what thought process I have on environmental issues, and what thought process he has on environmental issues, and that he's going to be less opposed to be than almost anyone in the office, I got really depressed. There's no way I'm going to change these people's minds.
This is way too long. I'm done.