Pitter Patter
The sound you hear is the pitter patter of little carbon footprints.
It doesn’t take long nowadays to figure out that we have collectively lost our freaking minds. The ever increasing craze to measure the carbon emissions on everything from cricket farts to Google internet searches has reached a new level of insanity.
It’s not so much that we as adults have chosen with our own free will to go completely bonkers that bothers me. It’s that we have now elected to turn our preschool children into little carbon counting nit wits as well.
The new president’s two girls, along with the vast majority of other Washington DC school children, enjoyed that juvenile version of Nirvana known as a snow day thanks to a historically cold winter. At the same time Al “The Sky Is Falling But First It’s Going To Burn Up” Gore was making his well rehearsed pitch to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the need to introduce a treaty to lower carbon emissions at the United Nations global conference in Copenhagen next December.
When it comes to the very stupid idea of cap and trade in carbon emissions, like the one being instigated by the new president, Al Gore is not a stupid man. Actually he is somewhat of a visionary. Not that he has a vision to save the planet, but in that he knows if he and his carbon cronies are able to convince enough people of the need to set up a carbon trade monopoly game, he can be the banker.
It’s actually the thing that dreams are made of. Create a bogus new unit of currency by developing a chic new fad, give it monetary value and then control that currency. If successful this hanging chad could be king the world, as long as the world IQ never surpasses that of a Ficus plant.
It became obvious to me that this carbon counting cult conspiracy is gaining ground when I read that Chicago will soon be home to one of the nation’s first eco-friendly daycare centers. The Little Green House is slated to open in the West Loop area this coming April. This center is part of the national Children’s Academies of America Corporation who is looking to plant these eco-babbling baby barracks all over the country.
The center’s claim to fame is in the use of non-toxic paints, PVC free toys, Energy Star appliances and an organic meal plan. They will be enrolling kids from 6 weeks to 5 years old and will be directing their activities in such a way as to mind meld the little ankle biters into a state of eco-consciousness.
First off I can’t imagine any new daycare that would use toxic paint. Second, I can’t see any daycare outside of China that would stock up on PVC material toys. Third, Energy Star appliances are basically everywhere. And finally I have seen little kids eat mud pies which are also organic. So it is not in what they are doing that makes them particularly eco-friendly, it is how they are advertising it that makes them unique.
The sad part for me is when I read the director say “It’s going to be very creative in how we tie the eco-friendly curriculum into the arts and crafts themes. We’ll do indoor gardens and go to the park and explore the parkland, not go to the swings.”
Low those many years ago in the dark ages when I was a little Big Frick we had our own eco-consciousness and energy conservation. I was constantly told to turn off the light when I left a room, close the door because we weren’t heating the whole neighborhood, don’t leave the water running, close the refrigerator door, pick up my garbage and turn off that damn TV. We made art projects out of dried leaves and sticks and planted just about every seed we came in contact with. We didn’t need to explore parklands, we explored everything, and we learned about nature and the great outdoors through scouting, before it became a homophobic taboo to be a boy scout.
Back then the backwards folks that were in charge of our well being understood that we were kids. And sometimes kids like to just swing in the swings or lie in the grass and do absolutely nothing constructive to save the planet.
It seems to me that kids today don’t have a chance. It’s gone from “Just Say No To Drugs” to “Just Say No To Everything”.
Maybe we all need to just take a minute to remember what it is to be a kid. There will be plenty of time for them to save the planet.
For the time being let’s just leave that to Superman and Wonder Woman.
