This post it a bit of a follow up to my New Year's Anti-Resolution. First let me begin by saying that I am a follower of the Dude philosophy. I can sit on my ass, take elevators up one floor, and eat fast food with the best of them. I know these things are bad for me, but I continue to do them. With all this green on the brain, I've had a bit of a personal revelation. It has really sunk in that not only are these lazy habits bad for me, but they are bad for the environment.
Our society has recoded the word "lazy" into the more palatable word "convenient." It is not that I am lazy that makes me drive five minutes to a store two blocks away rather than walk, it is that it is more convenient. We rationalize such behavior by arguing that we are just too busy to do things the slower way. Meanwhile we waste our precious and limited time by watching an average of 4 hours of television per day. All the while we are getting more Jabba the Hut like, creating more waste, and depleting the earth's natural resources. Burning dirty fossil fuels to power our elevators, escalators, and moving sidewalks. This realization and addition to my personal shame has truly motivated me to stop being so convenient. I just hope it sticks.
In closing, economists should coin a new industry term; the Lazy Industry. This would include elevators going into 5 story buildings, moving sidewalks, escalators, fast food restaurants, and cities that build endless stretches of highway while being completely devoid of bike routes. What else should be included in the Lazy Industry?
Note: Most of the pictures above came from public Flickr accounts, but I was too lazy to write down the creators' names. Please email us if you want them removed.
4 comments:
ADA requirements make ridding buildings of elevators, escalators, and moving sidewalks (mainly in airports) virtually impossible. Providing more efficient energy to these things is about as good as it's going to get. Scientists should just start working on making Harry Potter reality. I'd give a lot to be able to travel by Apparition or Flue Powder.
Pat is absolutely correct. Holy crap did I just say that. The only way to lessen the energy impact is to invest in the smart grid technology that is long overdue in our nations largest cities. Alternative energies are on the way, unfortunately it seems at a snails pace right now. Hopefully new government spending will rectify that situation.
Again, I'm torn between my love of efficiency and my desire to do what's ecologically correct. But, if we do what Sean said and create a clean energy grid, then we can have our cake and eat it too to som e degree.
That being said, fast food and watching TV don't fall into the "efficiency" category for me b/c fast food will kill you and TV is where you watch that most horrendous of all spectacles known as American Idol.
Note to Buki: As for the Flickr photos, if you click on the 'Advanced Search' link and go to the bottom you can check the 'Creative Commons' box so that only free-use photos appear in your search results.
@Pat and Sean - You guys are missing the forest for the trees. I of course would not argue that use of elevators by folks in wheelchairs or those with limited mobility is lazy. I would argue though that if able bodied people stopped using these things to go up 1 or 2 flights of stairs we could save a ton of energy. I mean the elevators in my four story office building are used in exactly this way probably 200 times per day. Multiply that by the hundreds of thousands of offices and that is a LOT of wasted energy. I mean going up 1 or 2 flights of stairs by elevator does not even save you any time. It's disgusting waste in my opinion.
I also would love teleportation, be it via Harry Potter magic or Star Trek technology. I persistently bug Benduwah to hurry about and invent this.
@ Mike - Thanks for the flickr info.
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