Carnal Reason

Ann Althouse made a very useful observation:

I keep reading about how hybrid cars and compact fluorescent lightbulbs can reduce the production of greenhouse gases, but I have yet to see an article about the savings that could be achieved if we were to stop delivery of newspapers and magazines and do all of our news reading on line.

That’s not likely to happen, but all is not lost. I have a plan.

As per Sheryl Crow, consider a single sheet of toilet paper. I measured one, and found it to be 4 inches by 4.25 inches. The Wall Street Journal is printed on pages which measure 22.75 inches by 12 inches. A typical issue of the Journal is 56 to 58 pages long. Simple computations show that a 56 page issue of the Journal could provide the equivalent of 823 sheets of toilet paper.

Here’s the plan. The environmentally conscious can read the Journal, and then cut it up into into toilet paper size sheets. That should suffice for many months of Gaia-friendly wiping at Ms Crow’s recommended rate of one sheet per sitting. Saving the used sheets instead of flushing them results in a free issue of the New York Times.

Posted on May 14th, 2007 by pwyll
Filed under: eco-catastrophe, humor