Saturday, January 02, 2010

Just when I praise the Oregonian...

They have to go write this ridiculous garbage.

They apparently are unaware of the irony revealed in such obvious and nauseating moral preening. As they try to outdo each other with carbon correctness and confess where they sin, what they implicitly acknowledge is that no matter how "green" you are, no matter how virtuous, their really is only one way to be completely carbon free: stop breathing.

Short of that, once you go along with the game that consumption is a bad thing, you are a hypocrite.

The greatest irony of all is the one that none of the preeners figured out. They all give their green bonafides, but not one of them confessed the biggest green sin that each and every one of them commit:

They all work for what is arguably the biggest greenhouse gas villian in the state. Imagine! A business whose very economic life depends upon the daily harvest of vast amounts of timber, which is then delivered each and every day to roughly 300,000 households by fossil fuel powered vehicles, for a product that literally has a one day useful life!

In terms of green virtue and green sinners, a daily newspaper has to be the moral equivalent of Satan himself!

But somehow none in this collection of oh-so-virtuous-but-still-guilty-'cuz-I-could-do-more hipsters have figured out that their paychecks depend on the least "green" business on the face of the Earth!

3 comments:

MAX Redline said...

I was amazed by that waste of printspace as well. It was particularly amusing to see some of the O folks prattling about how they put the lids from their $4 lattes into the recycling bin, as under present rules, they aren't recyclable through the metropolitan system.

On the one hand, I feel sorry for them. It must be kind of numbing to have to go through life with such deference to a mentality of paying more in order to live less well.

On the other, the hypocrisy on display is so clear - and so jarring - that one can hope that some among the dwindling readership will recognize just what they've been buying into. Although I wouldn't hold my breath on that; the herd mentality is strong in this place.

Anonymous said...

Very well said, Max. Imagine having to consider every single decision you make and weigh its relative impact on the environment. The layers just peel back and peel back - forever if you let them. No matter what decision you make, you are negatively impacting the environment - even suicide causes pollution, although I think that's the best and most honest of a lot of bad options for all environmentalists.

Me said...

This whole thing is just middle school. How is it that these adults never grow up?