Posted by
Nerdus Maximus on Thursday, July 06, 2006 8:38:20 PM
The nature of what we do at my place of employment guarantees that the staff will all be from the right side of the IQ bell curve. Surprisingly, there are still quite a few who are from the left side of the political divide. The place this oxymoron manifests itself most clearly is attitudes and actions on “The Environment”, thus the question, “How many environmentalists does it take to screw in a light bulb?” The Liberals are quite adamant that the best possible use of instructional time with children in school is teaching them to save the planet by using energy saving light bulbs. They don’t need to learn the science behind an energy saving light bulb, only that they can’t be a good person unless they use them. Well, as I found out, it is more important that they encourage others to use them. I discovered this by asking the Liberals how many energy saving light bulbs were in use in their homes. The answer was “none”. This struck me as strange since I, definitely not a Liberal or Environmentalist, have quite a few. What could explain this?
It makes more sense if you know that I am not just a Conservative, but also Conservationist. For those of you not familiar with the term, a “Conservationist” is what Environmentalists were before they decided they had to do away with the “conserve” and emphasize the “mental”. Back in the 70’s (Wow, it hurts to say that!) I was a founding member of my high school’s Conservation Club. We were young, idealistic and driven by the news from leading climatologists that we had to change how we treated the planet or we would be wiped out by a coming ice age. We were also very effective, which is why climatologists are now telling us about global warming. There is the alternative explanation that climatologists are full of cow excrement, but I’ll leave it to you to decide. There is one other major difference between a Conservationist and an Environmentalist. Conservationists are committed to doing everything they reasonably can to reduce their negative impact on the planet. Environmentalists want legislatures and judges to tell everyone else what they should do, and what they aren’t allowed to do. This becomes apparent in the lunchroom at work. The Environmentalists eat from landfill chocking disposable plates. I eat from reusable dishes, which I then wash with a reusable brush and dry with an environmentally responsible dish towel. Environmentalists talk about saving the planet while Conservationists adopt behaviors that make a difference. This explains why the Conservative who would rather that children be taught real science actually screws in the energy saving light bulbs the Liberals would mandate be promoted in schools. OK, I also did the math and figured out that they save money over time, but in the end I screwed in the light bulb.
So, how many Environmentalists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A majority so they can legislate that everyone else has to do it.