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TODAY Monday 3 November 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site.

 

TODAY IN THE WORLD: Green Loafing

Each of us is responsible for addressing the global environmental crisis in his or her own way, and this weekend I got serious.

Offered a reprieve from the 170-mile migration I usually undertake to exercise joint parental custody of a 16-year-old daughter, I was able to stay in New York City. This break was in reward for my playing the role last Saturday night of clueless parent who looks the other way when nine high school juniors (including boys!) sleep in your living room. (Hey, fellas, howzitgoin? Touch the girl and you die.)

But this weekend I saved the world by doing nothing, and I want to set down the details for one of those "ecological footprint" studies that tries to assign individual arithmetic blame for the destruction of the Earth.

On Saturday morning I awoke in a 400 square-feet dwelling that had not required heating or cooling during the night. Autumn in New York. I downed two large black coffees, the environmental dimensions of which are spelled out in great detail by Seth Zuckerman in the Hypermaterialism section of this Website. Then I walked one mile to the Liberty Tree office (900 square feet, built 1910, no "climate control" system) where I did not turn on the computer because I was paying bills and writing up accounts with technologies familiar to Bob Cratchit and Uriah Heep. Walk back home in the late afternoon (in a driving rain, by the way; this is a tale of sacrifice), dinner in a Greek diner with cheap-date friend, "Boogie Nights" (Burt Reynolds!) at the neighborhood moviehouse, bed.

Big day on Sunday. Sleep late, ample breakfast at different Greek diner, deliberate assault on New York Times and New York Daily News. Meticulous attention to basketball statistics, horoscope, crossword, advertisements for military academies suitable for testosterone-soaked youths who want angelic daughter. Before you know it, it's noon, time for pre-game hype shows on television. Walk through still-driving rain to cheap-date friend's apartment where I spend next four-plus hours watching lead-up, game, overtime, and wrap-up to inconsequential professional football contest played in New Jersey under the same rain as that falling outside the window. Then to take-out chicken store, home, brow-furrowing essay in New York Review of Books, subsequent deep sleep. Wake today, walk to work, tap in these words.

No space heating, no internal combustion engines. Biggest eco-damage occasioned by long hot showers, bulky newspapers, and by energy embedded in the production of chicken, omelet and corn muffin and in the transportation required to bring to Manhattan Greek-Americans sensibly living in Astoria, Queens.

Perhaps this weekend can be regarded as the harbinger of a true New Age: unproductive, somewhat aimless, non-energy-intensive. Excellent modeling for Third World countries bent on over-consumption. Reinforcement is much more easily found in a large city, of course, but determined loafers could make do in suburb or woods. Further research -- followed by aggressive outreach program --cheerfully undertaken.

 

TODAY ON THE SITE

Speaking of unproductivity and lascivious youth, the Campus section of this Website has been updated, re-designed, and improved in all ways. Crucial info on course materials, activist groups, job and internships, etc. etc. Check in.

 

Recent "Today" columns:

10/31: Guilty Nationalist Pleasures
10/30: Europe Alone
10/29: Duck! (Again)
10/28: Civil Society and Conservation
10/27: Who Owns the National Forests?
10/24: Meanwhile, Back at the Infirmary...
10/23: "Heading Down the Right Path"
10/22: Markets and Medium-Greens
10/21: The Silver Republic and the People's Republic
10/20: Duck!

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