Maximize your Environmental Impact!
At the Massachusetts Sierra Club, I often wrote articles short articles on how to decrease your carbon footprint, decrease waste, and so on, like “Ten ways to save energy.” I knew that people read them – I regularly received comments, many of them quite nasty, by people who thought that I was going too far. The more I thought about those who complained, made me realize that these people became defensive because they were wasting energy, creating waste, or whatever, and felt that their waste should be okay because of their specific circumstances. One article that provoked the greatest number of comments was my article on plastics. People defended plastic waste as necessary . I typically responded that some plastics are literally lifesavers; such as disposable gloves for medical use, plastic wrappings for sterile instruments, and so on. But when I said that bottled water was absolutely unnecessary and a sad waste of resources, I was going too far. “What would happen if t...