The Japanese government is urging its citizens to go to bed early.
The Japanese government has launched a campaign encouraging people to go to bed and get up extra early in order to reduce household carbon dioxide emissions.
The Morning Challenge campaign, unveiled by the Environment Ministry, is based on the premise that swapping late night electricity for an extra hour of morning sunlight could significantly cut the nation’s carbon footprint.
Are people still taken in by this carbon footprint cockwaffle? I wonder whether our new government will embrace this cack with the same fervour as the previous lot? If they do, I’ll ignore it, just as I ignore everything that the nanny state says. As a rule of thumb, if a politician tells me to do something, it’s probably a good idea to do the exact opposite.
I’ll go to bed when I’m good and ready, not when nanny tells me and nanny can take the nation’s carbon footprint and…
Well, you get the picture.
“As a rule of thumb, if a politician tells me to do something, it’s probably a good idea to do the exact opposite.”
I must confess that such was my distaste for our recent Labour administration, that I really did take the view that if they told me to do something, I ought to do the opposite. In particular, I felt I really, really ought to be increasing my carbon footprint*.
The problem was that most of the obvious ways to do this cost money, and, being a most parsimonious individual, I didn’t fancy that. For example, our use of central heating has fallen dramatically over recent years as we’ve tried to economise. On the plus side, this has saved quite a bit of money. However it has also decreased our carbon footprint.
To make matters worse, I have this anorakish fixation with trying to get the most miles per gallon out of my car. (This probably saves me a couple of hundred quid a year.) And I know that I ought to spend more time on flights, especially long haul flights, but I increasingly regard time spent in airports and on ‘planes as time wasted. I really should be buying more food from abroad, in order to increase the food miles on the stuff, but I also have this perverse to desire to support British farmers.
Oh, and I’d better mention that I’ve always been a strong believer in the old “early to bed, early to rise” thing.
And so I have to confess to being an utter failure. But all help and good ideas are welcome.
*A quick google indicates that I’m not the only one who wants to increase my carbon footprint, but I’ve not found any really good ideas yet.
Yeah, I tend to have the same problem, so second best is to do my own thing and ignore them and their eco-wankery. If I happen to do what they want, well, so be it, but I do it for my own reasons, not theirs.