Green Tip #108: Change Your Name

Now, it's not often that I write specifically about the things that are currently happening in my life (while I am often inspired by them), but I'm going to go against that with Green Tip #108. Those of you that know me personally know that I am engaged to be married in the next few years. I was speaking with my future in-laws recently and they were asking me if my fiancee was going to keep her name or take mine. Like I do whenever I am asked any question, I thought to myself, "What Would Al Gore Do?" In other words, which would be more environmentally friendly? And the answer is that she should take my name.

Why is that more Green, you ask? Her last name is nine letters long whereas mine is only four. Take a moment and think of all the times that you sign or write your name in a given day. Even if my fiancee only writes her name once a day on average, that could add up to 21,900 times for the rest of her life. Times a difference of five letters, and she'll be saving 109,500 letters worth of ink. I certainly don't know how much ink that adds up to, but I know it's pretty significant. And that doesn't even take into account the amount of printer ink that is used on everything form marriage certificates to job applications.

Alright! We saved a pretty good amount of ink. Case closed, right? Wrong. Let's take it one more step. Let's start a practice of when people get married, the spouse with the longer name should give it up. Yes, guys, I know it's difficult to think that many of us will have to give up our family names and take our wives, but I think it's time we embrace this change not only for the environment, but also to help with gender relations.

I know that this will eventually tend to favor naturally short last named cultures such as the Chinese (Li, Wu, Hu, etc.) and be biased against cultures with long names such as the Polish (Wojciechowski, Kwiatkowski, etc) and the Georgians (Kvaratskhelia, etc.), but surname eradication is a small price to pay to avoid biological eradication due to Climate Change.

Oh, one other thing. If your last names are the same length, pleeeease don't do the hyphenated thing because you can't choose between the two. That's the opposite of what Green Tip #108 is about. So I had better not ever meet a half Polish, half Georgian child some day with the last name Wojciechowski-Kvaratskhelia.

Green Tip #107: Be a Scrooge

Ah, yes. Don't you just love this time of year?? I hope that everyone has had a wonderful holiday season enjoying the company of friends, family and robot clones you created to replace your family. But now the time has come to take down the organic mistletoe, convert the Christmas tree growing in your living room back into a President's Day tree, and begin heading back to work. But before we do that, we need to look back at this holiday season and see what we've learned.

Christmas is notable for its characters that can inspire us and motivate us to become better people. Think of how the Grinch realizes the true meaning of Christmas and his heart grows three sizes (ow, by the way). Or Linus from Peanuts giving a rousing speech that gives everyone hope and teaches all of his friends a thing or two about interior design so they can resurrect the seemingly hopeless Christmas tree. Or Clark Griswald suffering through an unbearable Christmas Vacation to teach everyone the value of purchasing robot clones of your family so you don't have to deal with your real family.

But one character is often overlooked for the message he is able to teach to everyone. And that man is Ebeneezer Scrooge. Yes, I know, people know very well the message he learns. Some stuff about not being a jerk or liking Christmas or helping handicap kids or something. I don't actually remember.

But no, I'm not talking about what Scrooge learns at the end of the story. I'm talking about the way he acts at the beginning. His carbon footprint is insanely small!! Scrooge's story (which was first published in 1843, 130-ish years before the environmental movement of the 1970's) was so far ahead of its time! One example of a way Scrooge was able to cut his energy use is by walking to work each day. Yes, I know cars didn't exist back then, but walking is still better for the environment than taking a horse and carriage. And he also refuses to refill the coal furnace at his offices. He wasn't doing it to be cheap, he knew how many GHG's he'd be putting in the air from a coal furnace. And finally, Mr. Dickens tells us that Scrooge uses only a single candle to light his house as opposed to wasting lamp fuel to light his whole chambers. Hm... sounds familiar... maybe like Green Tip #7???

Well, there you have it. When I thought I was being really imaginative when I came up with that Green Tip, Scrooge was already doing it 166 years earlier. So I think the Christmas message is clear. Environmental stewardship doesn't have to be taught by fancy things like Ivy League Sustainability Business Management Masters Degree Programs or overly educated bloggers who think they are wittier than they really are. Sometimes you can learn what's truly important from a stingy banker from 1840's London.

Green Tip #106: Green Recipe #1 - Eco-Friendly Beer Boiled Shrimp

So, there have been countless cookbooks that have gone into great detail about how to cook more eco-friendly, but it's my opinion that they haven't gone far enough to protect the environment. Here's the first of many recipes that I feel are as good for the environment as you can possibly be when cooking:

Eco-Friendly Boiled Shrimp

Ingredients:
1 pound of butter*
1 large onion, chopped**
1 tablespoon salt***
5 lbs large shrimp****
3 bottles (12 oz) beer*****
A large pile of dry wood

*In order to make butter eco-friendly, first find a free-range cow and milk it. Then, take the milk and churn it in order to produce organic butter (Note: befriend an Amish for best butter churning techniques)
**Onion should be grown in your own personal garden using no pesticides or fertilizers. You can never trust food companies and grocery stores when they say an onion is organic, so it's best to do it yourself. Allow several weeks for onion to grow to maturity.
***Salt should be organic, free-range salt. Don't question me! Just get some!
****Shrimp should be gathered by hand (or organically made net) from the nearest Gulf or Ocean. After walking (to save on carbon emissions) to the nearest salt water body of water and shrimp are fished, be sure to remove all bits of plastic that have been entangled in the net (from the Great Pacific or Atlantic Garbage Patches). Shrimp should be humanely put to sleep using jagged local rocks. Any other method is not environmentally friendly enough.
*****Beer should be personally brewed from only the most organic methods possible. For best results, please use the recipe and methods used by 6000 BC Ancient Iraqis. Any recipes more modern than that have surely been tainted by Big Alcohol and do not meet the Green standards of this recipe.

First, place the beer and the salt into a large eco-friendly kettle. Begin the process of rubbing wood together to start a fire. After several hundred tries and many splinters later, give up and walk to the nearest Red Lobster. Order from the menu and enjoy! Don't forget to tip your waiter or waitress!

Now I know what you're thinking... Is it really eco-friendly if I order from Red Lobster? Aren't they a large company that doesn't care about the environment and in fact is part of a global conspiracy to overfish the seas in order to destabilize fishing-based economies such as Japan and Norway as part of a plan to create a New World Order?

Maybe, but you're walking to Red Lobster, so you're cutting back on the amount of gas you're using! Way to be Green!

Green Tip #105: Don't Live By Example

Ladies and gentlemen, those of you that know me personally will know that I lived in California for almost a week several months ago and have made plans to travel back there in December. While I have tried to keep this dark secret out of the public, I cannot bear the shame of violating Green Tip #17 any longer. I have prepared an apology.

"First, please let me apologize to my family, friends, co-workers and fellow bloggers for the cloud placed over satirical Green blogs. I did nothing wrong while on the West Coast. I regret my decision to plead guilty and the sadness that decision has brought to my girlfriend, family, friends, and fellow bloggers. For that I apologize.

In September, I overreacted and made a poor decision. While I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct at the Burbank airport or anywhere else, I chose to only use public transportation that week in the hope of making it [California's pollution] go away. I did not seek any counsel, either from an attorney, self-proclaimed California liberal eco-hippie, friends, or family. That was a mistake, and I deeply regret it. Because of that, I have now come forth and I am asking my readers to review this matter and to advise me on how to proceed.

For a moment, I want to put my state of mind into context on September 12th. For eight months leading up to September, my blog and I had been relentlessly and viciously harassed by my poor motivation and an ill-conceived Tournament. If you've seen today's paper, you know why. Let me be clear: I do not hate the environment and never have. Also, I am not gay and never have been.

Still, without a shred of truth or evidence to the contrary, the memory of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has engaged in this witch hunt. In pleading guilty to not recycling that week, I overreacted in California, because of the stress of the polluted air and the rumors it has fueled around the blogosphere (ugh, I hate that word). Again, that overreaction was a mistake, and I apologize for my misjudgment. Furthermore, I should not have kept this travel to myself, and should have told my family and friends about it. I wasn't eager to share this failure, but I should have done so anyway.

I love my fiance, family, friends, readers and the environment. I love serving the Internet in this blog. Over the years, I have accomplished a lot for the environment, and I hope my readers will allow me to continue to do that. There are still goals I would like to accomplish, and I believe I can still be an effective leader for eco-hippies everywhere. Next month, I will announce, as planned, whether or not I will recycle when I am in California.

As an elected [by Blogger.com and myself] blogger, I fully realize that my life is open for public criticism and scrutiny, and I take full responsibility for the mistake in judgment I made in attempting to handle this matter myself.

It is clear, though, that through my actions I have brought a cloud [of smog] over California. For that, I ask the readers of this blog for their forgiveness.

As I mentioned earlier, I have now retained counsel to examine this matter and I will make no further comment."

Okay, one further comment. The framework for the apology was provided by a former Senator from Idaho named Larry Craig. For a better appreciation of the paragraphs above, see this article here. Oh, and me stealing this speech is a good example of how to live out Green Tip #10.