Sometimes you’ve just got to shake your head. The world’s gone insane, and there’s nothing you can do. …
That’s why I feed the squirrels. The squirrels and I understand the problem of environmental sustainability like none other. In fact, just this morning I was engaged in a conversation with Shorty. Shorty’s the one which used to stash his extra peanuts up under the hood of my car, until one day last winter when I started the car up at a particularly inopportune moment for him, and he was left with only a short stub for a tail.
Anyway, our conversation this morning went something like this:
"Good morning, Shorty," I said.
"Good morning, Kim. Will there be many peanuts today? There’s a storm coming, you know."
"Of course," I said. "I saw the forecast on the Weather Channel, and I figured you guys would be extra hungry today. Only, there’s one thing that troubles me: How did you know that there is a storm coming?"
"Isn’t it obvious? Yesterday, there was water in my water-bowl; this morning, it’s all ice, and the wind is blowing out of the north. This time of year, that means there is a storm coming.
"By the way," said Shorty. "I hear that you’ve had some trouble communicating your views on the relationship between economic activity and environmental impact. Would you like some help with it?"
So, long tale short, I gave Shorty the URL to my blog, and he agreed to leave me a comment. …
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“I=E”
ReplyDeleteA personal economic and environmental impact theory:
I = E, where “I” represents the amount of a person’s income, and “E” represents the extent of negative impact one’s activities have on the natural environment.
The reason this formula works—and, so far as I know, it has not been refuted—is because while one person may purchase an environmentally friendly product, for example, ten others who work at the plant that produces the environmentally friendly product may not spend their paychecks so wisely. Put your money in a bank, and the bank will likely loan it out to some fool who wants to build a factory for the purpose of manufacturing widgets.
In other words, “I=E” represents the problem of man versus the environment reduced to its lowest terms.
Of course, the most common argument to “I=E” is that there is a big difference between spending your money on a quart of oil, for example, and spending the same amount on a bag of organic potting soil. In terms of environmental impact, it would seem that the oil would do the most damage. And, in fact, that would be true, but only in the immediate sense. “I=E” considers the long-range impact of what you did to earn your money in the first place, the effect of your having stimulated the economy with your purchase, and what happens to your money once it has fallen into the hands of the next person in line to use it, and so on.