Get Constipated! Save the Planet!
In case you don't follow links in my Odd Lots entries (or if you've been living under a box for the last few days) you may not have heard that Sheryl Crow has proposed limiting the number of sheets of toilet paper you use on each...um...sitting in order to combat global warming. (Thanks to Brook Monroe for the above stone-cold sober BBC link, though most other papers have carried the story.) I almost immediately received several notes telling me that it was indeed a hoax, or at least a joke. (One gentleman said, "Jeff, can you spell i..r..o..n..y??" Yes I can, at least when I detect any in the vicinity.) Rick Widmer sent me the link to the People article in which Laurie David (producer of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth) said that it was a joke. And if Laurie David said it, and People published it, how could we possibly doubt it?
Heh. Can you spell d..a..m..a..g..e......c..o..n..t..r..o..l?
I can almost hear it: Psssst! Sheryl, you nitwit! You're playing right into the hands of the enemy! Say it's a joke RIGHT NOW or I'll tie you to a chair and make you watch the movie again!
I guess the Global Warming Movement needs better spokespersons, or at least spokespersons who tell better jokes. I began thinking of a few involving constipation (hey, that would really reduce the amount of toilet paper we'd use!) but that way lies madness. As for the irony, it lies here: Much or most of the paper fiber in toilet paper does not return to the atmosphere. The fiber is finely distributed in the sludge produced as the final product in sewage treatment plants, and unless the sludge is burned or used as fertilizer (which is less and less common these days for obvious reasons) the fibers are buried with the sludge in landfills, effectively sequestering their carbon. So the more you use, the better! Pass the Ex-Lax!
In the meantime, the Global Warming Issue looks sillier and sillier and sillier. I have to wonder: Was Ms. Crow's university tour funded by the oil industry?