What follows is an attempt at satire, or at least partly tongue-in-cheek:
Daily our news headlines shout at least one of these: "Save the environment," "Stop greenhouse gases," "Stop the tar sands," "Clean up the oceans," "Save the trees," "Save the rivers" "Save the spirit bear," "Save the boreal forest," "Save the animals" and "Climate crisis."
Most Canadians could easily add to that list.
Apparently, we are so concerned about so many environmental concerns that studies are showing an increase in anxiety and depression. Heartless soul that I am, I am going to add one more thing to the list of things causing environmental damage: your morality; your personal life choices, those choices you make based on your own morality; your sense of right and wrong.
Maybe you are outraged and immediately declare "You can't legislate morality."
Or that it's none of my business. If you have ever felt compelled to save the world from impending environmental collapse, and want other people to change their behavior, Well, maybe, maybe not? We have laws against theft. Hmmm. What is the environmental impact of theft? Ever been to Costco? Ever wonder why they package small items inside those huge, impregnable, plastic packages? To prevent theft.
When we teach our kids that theft is wrong, and when we punish theft, that is a moral exercise. In other words, morality.
Another moral topic, and it's carbon footprint: your sex life.
Yep. Sex can be more or less hazardous to the environment, depending on your choices.
How so? Consider your options: sex with whomever strikes your fancy, sex with a series of partners, or the "boring" sex of a life-long married couple.
The first and second options require a more carbon intensive lifestyle. You need protection from spreading disease, which requires a piece of latex, which is pretty much plastic. (Want to have a conversation about reducing single-use plastics?)
If the protection fails and you contract a disease, you enlarge your carbon footprint by the purchase of medication, which requires untold amounts of all kinds of resources to research and manufacture.
If a baby is conceived, well, the carbon footprint is increased exponentially. If the pregnancy is aborted, a trip to a medical facility is required, the procedure scheduled, the "products of conception" have to be incinerated, all of which releases more carbon, all to no benefit to you or anyone else.
If you chose to parent the child with a virtual stranger, or someone you are not married to, you will likely not be living in the same house, so the carbon footprint will be huge compared to a family living in one house. Driving the kid to and fro, eating out more, competing with the other parent to show who loves the child most by buying them the most, etc. Choose the boring moral option and your carbon footprint is smaller.
Not convinced? Lying, cheating, abusing, defaming, breaking contracts, all cause greater output of natural resources than honesty and keeping promises. Breaking a contract will land you in court. Necessitating a drive to the lawyer and the courthouse. Then all the extra hours you will have to work to pay for your lawyer, and the driving, and the paper, and the ink; you get my drift. Lying, cheating, and abusing, can all cause mental health issues which can cause all kinds of casual use of resources which could be better utilized or simply remain unused if they didn't happen, or at least happened less.
Maybe I am out-to-lunch. Maybe my argument has more holes than a single-use piece of latex. But, maybe, the moral choices we make daily matter to the environment more than we think. Maybe they matter more than screaming at the unknown forces of global enterprises.
At the very least, they are something we can immediately improve. And we just might be happier.
