If idiocy was a piece of paper...

I got this letter from 'South Eastern Energy' my local energy company. It appears to be at war with itself. In case you are having trouble seeing let me explain it for you - in the top left corner you got an article about 'Water Efficiency', in the bottom left corner is the article about the flood and opposite are the top tips for using less water in your garden, which is easy to do because my garden is flooded right now as are most of the gardens on my street. It's because of the floods, stupid. Which brings me to the bottom right article - from July this year the water price will increase by 9.9%. Now I would have thought with all this extra free water falling out of the sky... oh well maybe they will explain it better in the next letter. I recommend a flow chart.

Power-board from hell

Let me save you counting time - that power-board has 27 sockets. Guess what my first thought was when I saw it - that's right, the owner of this will have major problems meeting their Carbon Tax obligations. Now let's see if you can work out where I took the photo. Here are the options:

a) A cannabis plantation
b) Aluminium smelting factory
c) Primary school 

Yes, you guessed it - Primary School. Which brings me to my next question. Schools are major consumers of energy. They have air conditioning, computer labs, etc. Yet no-one is talking about compensation. So how do you think schools will recoup their Carbon losses? That's right by charging the parents and that means you and I. The private schools will put up their fees and the Public schools will make new fees. Let's think of a good name ... I know - 'Planet protection fee'. I am sure that will stick.

The Human Footprint

In recent times a new concern has crept into people's lives. Increasingly people judge their actions in light of how much Carbon their living generates. Reducing the 'Carbon footprint' has become a measure of one's concern for the environment. Where once children were taught to be polite, to vacate a seat to an elderly person, to not litter or be rude... These days it's all about five minute showers, the 'half flush' toilet and solar power. Concrete expressions of civility and kindness have been replaced by virtue whose value is little more then symbolic. The claim of 'It all adds up' fails to account for were exactly does it all add up, on whose account and for whose benefit.

Saving the Amazon and decreasing global temperature by 0.001C in our granchildren's days may be worthy goals but what about our own 'environment'? The people we live next to, the streets we live on, the sidewalks we step on. Aren't they worthy of protection and care? I propose a new definition. Let us call it 'the Human footprint'. The Human footprint is that impact we make withing the hearts and lives of other people. Just as caring to keep the Carbon footprint small so too we must work our hardest to keep our Human footprint as large as possible. We must strive to make a positive and meaningful impact on our fellow human beings at every interaction, no matter how brief and insignificant. We must become conscious and awake to the impact that our words and actions carry on our family, friends, work colleagues, even strangers. We must learn to be sensitive to their feelings, always civil, never dismissive, always ready do back up words with action. Only by treating other with civility and kindness, only by being genuinely concerned with the welfare of those close to us can we hope to enrich the human universe we live in. And isn't that the environment worthy of protection?