This Year I Will Lose Weight by Devilstower on Daily Kos
Devilstower has come out with a new year's resolution to lose weight, much the same as many other people in the United States. But Devilstower (I can't tell for sure yet, but I think its a woman) is not talking about weight as in being too fat, she's talking about reducing her carbon footprint. She wants to stop using her car as much and walk places more often. She plans on getting rid of her extra clothes and giving them to poor people. She's going to live a simpler life and attempt to eliminate all of her excess junk.
To illustrate a life that she believes should be emulated, Devilstower tells the story of a co-worker and friend of hers. This woman left the her job and traveled the world in the simplest manner that she could. She wanted to find out what the lives of women were like around the world. She reduced her possessions to what could fit into a backpack and moved to Haiti. She lived with families for weeks at a time anywhere from Haiti, to Moscow, to Zimbabwe. She stayed in Zimbabwe long enough to become a citizen, adopt an AIDS stricken child, and flee the country. Currently she resides in St. Louis with her child.
This is what Devilstower wrote about for January 6, 2008. Reducing the amount of energy you use is an honorable thing to do. In regards to her resolution to reduce her carbon footprint, I commend her, but I think in the end what she personally does will probably have little effect on the world. If it makes her feel good that she's causing less wasted energy, then that's great, but I do not believe that this is necessary for everybody to do. The amount of heat that is created by my computer being on all the time is not enough to make the world a worse place to live... and inversely turning off my computer is not going to make the world a better place to live. Worrying about my computer being on all day seems laughable when you think about all the other stuff out there causing pollution and heat.
The whole story about her friend that went around the world didn't really seem relevant to the point she was trying to make. The story would have fit better had her friend's travel purpose been more related to to cutting carbon emissions rather than to find out what women are like in other cultures.
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2 comments:
Although one person's actions might not change the world, every little bit helps because change has to start somewhere. One thing that I think is important about the lady who traveled the world was the knowledge she gained in experiencing a simplistic life and poverty. I think every American needs to leave the country at least once and experience third world living in order to really understand how spoiled we are and how much unnecessary things we have.
I believe the point of the article by Devilstower was not only to say what they were doing for themselves but also to encourage other readers to do likewise. You may be right that an individual's energy reform has a negligible impact on the global level, but if enough people join the effort the effects could be astounding.
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