A Letter from a Parent of a
15-year old Planet Saver
After our daughter of fifteen years of age was moved to tears by
the speech of Greta Thunberg at the UN the other day, she became angry with our
generation “who had been doing nothing for thirty years”
So, we decided to help her prevent what the girl on TV announced
of “massive eradication and the disappearance of entire ecosystems”.
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| Greta Thunberg |
We are now committed to give our daughter a future again, by
doing our part to help cool the planet four degrees.
From now on she will go to school on a bicycle, because driving
her by car costs fuel, and fuel puts emissions into the atmosphere. Of course,
it will be winter soon and then she will want to go by bus but cycling through
the freezing builds resilience.
Of course, she is now asking for an electric bicycle, but we have
shown her the devastation caused to the areas of the planet as a result of
mining for the extraction of Lithium and other minerals used to make batteries
for electric bicycles, so she will be pedalling, or walking. Which will not
harm her, or the planet. We used to cycle and walk to school too.
Since the girl on TV demanded “we need to get rid of our
dependency on fossil fuels” and our daughter agreed with her, we have
disconnected the heat vent in her room. The temperature is now dropping to
twelve degrees in the evening, and will drop below freezing in the winter, we
have promised to buy her an extra sweater, hat, tights, gloves and a blanket.
For the same reason we have decided that from now on she only
takes a cold shower. She will wash her clothes by hand, with a wooden
washboard, because the washing machine is simply a power consumer and since the
dryer uses natural gas, she will hang her clothes on the clothes line to dry,
just like my parents and grandparents used to do.
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| Climate Strikers |
Speaking of clothes, the ones that she currently has are all
synthetic, so made from petroleum. Therefore, on Monday, we will bring all her
designer clothing to the second-hand shop.
We have found an eco-store where the only clothing they sell is
made from undyed and unbleached linen and jute. Also, can’t have clothes made
on wool, because the emissions from farting sheep are supposedly causing bad
weather.
It shouldn’t matter that it looks good on her, or that she is
going to be laughed at, dressing in colourless, bland clothes and without a
wireless bra, but that is the price she has to pay for the benefit of The
Climate.
Cotton is out of the question, as it comes from distant lands
and pesticides are used for it. Very bad for the environment.
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| Greta Thunberg at the UN in 2065 |
We just saw on her Instagram that she’s angry with us. This was
not our intention.
From now on, at 7 p.m. We will turn off the Wi-Fi and we will
only switch it on again the next day after dinner for two hours. In this way we
will save on electricity, so she is not bothered by electro-stress and will be
totally isolated from the outside world. This way, she can concentrate solely
on her homework. At eleven o’clock in the evening we will pull the breaker to
shut the power off to her room, so she knows that dark is dark. That will save
a lot of CO2.
She will no longer be participating in winter sports to ski
lodges and resorts, nor will she be going on anymore vacations with us, because
our vacation destinations are practically inaccessible by bicycle.
See also:
Since our daughter fully agrees with the girl on TV that the CO2
emissions and footprints of her great-grandparents are to blame for ‘killing
our planet’, what all this simply means, is that she also has to live like her
great-grandparents and they never had a holiday, a car or even a bicycle.
We haven’t talked about the carbon footprint of food yet.
Zero CO2 footprint means no meat, no fish and no poultry, but
also no meat substitutes that are based on soy (after all, that grows in farmers’
fields, that use machinery to harvest the beans, trucks to transport to the
processing plants, where more energy is used, then trucked to the
packaging/canning plants, and trucked once again to the stores) and also no
imported food, because that has a negative ecological effect. And absolutely no
chocolate from Africa, no coffee from South America and no tea from Asia.
Only homegrown potatoes, vegetables and fruit that have been
grown in local cold soil, because greenhouses run on boilers, piped in CO2 and
artificial light. Apparently, these things are also bad for The Climate. We
will teach her how to grow her own food.
Bread is still possible, but butter, milk, cheese and yogurt,
cottage cheese and cream come from cows and they emit CO2. No more margarine
and no oils will be used for the frying pan, because that fat is palm oil from
plantations in Borneo where rain forests first grew.
No ice cream in the summer. No soft drinks and no energy drinks,
as the bubbles are CO2.
We will also ban all plastic, because it comes from chemical
factories. Everything made of steel and aluminum must also be removed. Have you
ever seen the amount of energy a blast furnace consumes or an aluminum smelter?
All bad for the climate!
We will replace her memory foam pillow top mattress, with a jute
bag filled with straw, with a horsehair pillow.
And finally, she will no longer be using makeup, soap, shampoo,
cream, lotion, conditioner, toothpaste and medication. Face washers will all be
linen, that she can wash by hand, with her wooden washboard, just like her
female ancestors did before climate change made her angry at us for destroying
her future.
In this way we will help her to do her part to prevent mass
extinction, water levels rising and the disappearance of entire ecosystems.
If she truly believes she wants to walk the talk of the girl on
TV, she will gladly accept and happily embrace her new way of life.
Regards,
Climate Parent.
