Conservation Peace

Stand just in the right place in my yard and all the trees align. They’re not trained to do that. They were planted that way. Row by row, column by column, past my yard, beyond the neighbors’ to the very edges of the development they form a grid like soldiers at attention, watchful over the houses in their ranks. I live in a recycled neighborhood, an old pulpwood farm, where land had already been cleared by humans for one use, and now has a residential zoning. Despite the carbon Sasquatch that I drive, I’m proud of where I dwell.

Furthermore, I am a garbage snob. I play a little game with myself every week. I try to get my recycle bin to hold more items than my garbage can. Everything is disposable when you come down to it, and perhaps the ability to waste is what has made this country truly great. I don’t care. I like the challenge to see how many things I can recycle. This little contest often starts with the grocery story about avoiding telltale signs of the big bad non-biodegradable containers.

I’m not greenwashing here. I’ll give you my disclosures so I don’t get caught in some biohazardous scandal. Yes, I made the conscious decision to use disposable diapers, and I swore I’d teach my babies to recycle. Triangle formed with arrows was the first shape that they learned. Thank the Lord for disposable diapers and may we find a more environmentally acceptable way to deal with them.

I throw away glass. One of the most recyclable substances there is and I pitch it in the garbage, yes, I do that. Glass is not picked up curbside in my neighborhood. If you try to sneak it in the recycle bin, the crew will throw beer bottles all over your yard. I shun the extra effort to store the glass and haul it for appropriate disposal. My bottles are providing necessary air pockets in the overcrowded landfill to allow aerobic decay.

I do not, however, put grease down the sink. Anybody with a septic system knows not to do that. And I am not running a prostitution ring nor have I ever propositioned sex in a public bathroom. Not that these things are inherently bad for the environment, but they do create a lot of wood sacrifice for the sake of newsprint.

God bless those of you who read this off your computer screens without making a hard copy. Your carbon emission credit will surely be used by some less worthy country.

The apostle, Paul, was the first Christian to champion paper-reduction practices. He wrote e-pistles, no?

Unlike Paul, I am the most unpublished writer on the planet. My ratio of production to publication is very out of balance, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t try. Oh I try all right, and computer technology has enabled me to try at a faster pace.

The absolute fasted way to get rejected is to send an e-query. I did a multiple electronic query over Christmas. I got e-jected within the hour, some within two minutes. It was outside the business day. It was a holiday. It was depressing.

Yet I hadn’t spent a stamp to get rejected and I hadn’t butchered a tree for someone to write bad news on it. (No one’s ever stood up for the free rights of electrons and I burden them without consciousness.)

E-submission gives me a larger scale on which to multiple query and I can readily manipulate my package to the individual preferences of the recipients, for instance whether they accept writing samples attached or only in the body of the e-mail. Printed cover letters, postage stamps, mailboxes, SASE’s become obsolete. I have increased e-missions for a better environment!

So far, the results are still the same.