Why
bother? That really is the big question facing us as individuals hoping to do something about climate change, and it’s not an easy one to answer. I don’t know about you, but for me the most upsetting moment in “An Inconvenient Truth” came long after Al Gore scared the hell out of me, constructing an utterly convincing case that the very survival of life on earth as we know it is threatened by climate change. No, the really dark moment came during the closing credits, when we are asked to . . . change our light bulbs. That’s when it got really depressing. The immense disproportion between the magnitude of the problem Gore had described and the puniness of what he was asking us to do about it was enough to sink your heart.But the drop-in-the-bucket issue is not the only problem lurking behind the “why bother” question. Let’s say I do bother, big time. I turn my life upside-down, start biking to work, plant a big garden, turn down the thermostat so low I need the Jimmy Carter signature cardigan, forsake the clothes dryer for a laundry line across the yard, trade in the station wagon for a hybrid, get off the beef, go completely local. I could theoretically do all that, but what would be the point when I know full well that halfway around the world there lives my evil twin, some carbon-footprint doppelgänger in Shanghai or Chongqing who has just bought his first car (Chinese car ownership is where ours was back in 1918), is eager to swallow every bite of meat I forswear and who’s positively itching to replace every last pound of CO2 I’m struggling no longer to emit. So what exactly would I have to show for all my trouble?
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Não coloque mais do que uma vez o comentário porque são moderados. É uma infelicidade mas a quantidade de SPAM que recebemos é assustadora. Mesmo com o sistema bem protegido os SPAMMERS estão sempre a inventar técnicas novas para nos aborrecer.
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"Just as a cow with a young calf keeps an eye on it
even when it is eating the grass, so it's proper for a
person to keep an eye on all that can be done for others
who are following the path."
Majjhima Nikaya
"The taxpayer - that’s someone who works
for the Federal Government but doesn’t have to take
the civil service exam"
Ronald Reagan
"Those are my principles; if you don't like
them, I have others."
Groucho Marx
"The hardest thing to understand in the
world is the income tax"
Albert Einstein
