How much time is the environment worth?
I was walking down the street today when I saw someone ask the guy in front of me “Do you have a minute for the environment?” I hate those people. You run into them all the time in DC. They stand around with clipboards trying to… well I don’t know exactly because I’ve never allowed one of them to talk to me, but I assume they want you to sign a petition or join some group. Sometimes they tell you the cause up front like this guy, and sometimes I have no clue what cause it is. I just say “no” and keep walking. The worst is when there’s someone saying “do you have some time to help the children?” What a way to try to guilt someone into talking to you.
The man that was approached just said, ”Sorry, I don’t.” I walked past them on the right and was thinking “why are you apologizing?” I never say “sorry” to those guys because I’m not sorry. I just say “no” if I say anything at all. I was glad that I had dodged that one, but then unexpectedly, he had backup just a few steps away. A second man saw me and asked “Do you have a minute for the environment?” It was kind of funny though because just as he was saying that, I noticed a rack of used books and stopped to take a look, so it didn’t even register at first that he had said that to me. But I looked up and saw he was looking at me and just said “no”.
As I was looking over the books, he asked someone else if they had a minute for the environment. Then I went inside the book store. I came out just a couple of minutes later and heard him saying to someone “do you have 30 seconds for the environment?” I got a kick out of that. Somehow within the span of those couple of minutes, the environment was worth half the time it was before. I should have gone up to him and said “Oh, 30 seconds? That’s a different story, I can spare that!” just to see what his reaction would have been.
August 24th, 2009 at 10:49 am
To answer your lead question, I feel the environment is worth at least 94min of everyone’s time (http://bit.ly/UeKJx). Of course, if you have more time, you can also purchase the book: http://bit.ly/2OsvWi. Finally, everyone should spend at least an hour reviewing my favorite website: http://www.climatecrisis.net/
Al Gore
August 25th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
The Police Benevolent Society calls every now and again. The caller always seem to have a NY City accent of some sort, even though they swear they’re working for a “local” police force. They always start out with something along the lines of, “You wouldn’t want criminals out on the streets better armed than your police force, would you?”
I always want to answer, “Yes. I’d like you to walk around with squirt guns.” But I don’t say that. Seems like a bad idea. They already have my phone number.