In the Conundrum

In the Conundrum, if I read it right, we read

that all attempts at efficiency fall short

because efficiency boomerangs into

greater consumption of everything

made to be more efficient which

was invented and intended to help

us stop global warming, particle

pollution, environmental de-

gradation of everything

we hear, see, touch,

taste and smell.

 

Oh, I can feel good about my hybrid car, my

solar panels on my oversized suburban

house in a subdivision which sprawls

south of the city – not to mention

the Saturday car trips in my fuel

efficient, hybrid, plug-in which

I know uses electricity which

would mean more coal

burning except my solar

panels cover that with

enough to sell back

 

some to the electric company, so you see I’m

feeling pretty good except for this gnawing

sense that I haven’t changed anything,

really in my life; sacrifice isn’t even

on the scene, I’m sorry to say, some-

what. And so, I take those trips to

the local farmer’s market to purchase

organic produce for everything

except for the thing I can’t get

there and so get wherever I can

get it; driving is no problem

 

even if it means driving more and more and more

because the mileage is so good. I see my Yuppie

friends pushing their precious, precocious little

ones in the super-duper, safe as can be, super-

hard plastic strollers. But in reality, I’d do much

more for the environment if I sold it all and

moved to the eighteenth floor of a high

rise in the most environmentally efficient

city in America – the Big Organic Apple.

But I was raised to grow horizontally as

Recommended by the egotistical,

 

narcissistic, idea stealer Frank Lloyd Wright whose

utopian villages were based on car and individ-

ual helicopter travel from home to work and

back again.  The reality is that unless we can

convince all governments across the face of

the globe and multi-national corporations to

find ways for all the people of the earth to

attain equal distribution and significantly

less consumption of goods by the First

World Countries, then even with all

the scientific, technological,

 

environmental efficiency,

we’re cooked,

doomed

done,

toast.