what you can do

a few years ago i gave a talk on climate change at Georgetown U. and a young student asked me what she could do for the environment. I replied:

1. it doesn't much matter what you do, individual efforts make almost no difference,
2. but probably the most impact you can have would be to kill yourself and yourself so deep that your rotting body won't emit greenhouse gasses,
3. finally, i can only tell you what i did today: biked to the bus stop, took the bus to the Metro then the subway downtown, walked a mile to the campus. that's an existential answer.

needless to say, in light of answer #2, i wasn't invited back to this Jesuit university again...