Less Is... Less

The other day, Oscar brought some things back to the forefront of your mind.  Sometimes when things take effort, we push them to the back of our consciousness.  Why think about the effects of our actions when doing that may lead to having to do something about it?

A few weeks ago there was a man in the news.  Why, you may wonder?  Well, he was in the news for not throwing away any trash.  For a year.  He kept a record of the year and talked about the things he did in order to reduce waste in his life.  What most people did was read about him in the news, maybe talk about him next to the water cooler and then forget about him while taking out the daily trash.  Because there is a lot of trash generated in these United States and it is almost as though it is the right of the nation, nay, its duty, to create as much trash as possible.  Oh, and consume.

Just last week, I was listening to the radio and heard about how maybe this year or next China will over take the United States as the primary consumer of motor vehicles.  The population of the United States is 300 million, give or take.  The population of China is 1.3 billion - 4 times as much.  Oh, and the population of India is 1.1 billion - still over three times as much.  I throw that in because I remember listening to a show on radio where people were outraged because more Indians were buying cars.  The logic was - well we have had cars for so long so we can't live without them (and God forbid we have to give up our SUVs) and so India must sacrifice for the sake of the environment.  They don't deserve our wasteful luxuries.  I just think it's crazy that with so many people out there, the United States leads the way with the vehicles.

Instead we'll turn up the A/C as we drive our 10 miles to the gallon massive car - a car so huge it is practically scraping the sides of the buildings on either side of the street as it hulks on by - and we will marvel at this man who managed to accumulate only 8 yoghurt tubs with tops in 365 days.  All this enviro-babble; isn't it all up for debate still?  I mean, one could read the tips he lists for reducing the amount of waste created by day to day living but isn't it so much more fun to chat about it for fifteen minutes and then carry on with life as usual?