The Story of Stupid Stuff: Why Do Liberals Want Our Daughters to Hitchhike?

In June I did a post titled Warming Alarmism In Twilight, which was mostly about how badly the climate alarmists’ models have diverged from reality. Along the way, however, I noted with astonishment that my then-16 year old daughter had been advised by a teacher to hitchhike in order to minimize carbon emissions:

My 10th grade daughter had her last day of school yesterday. A teacher gave her a sheet of instructions on how to lead a “green,” low-carbon summer. The sheet included suggestions like “hitchhike.” Great idea for a 16-year-old girl! Also, don’t have a baby over the summer. Um, don’t worry: she wasn’t planning to. But not for reasons of climate control. Is our world getting stupider all the time, or what?

I think it was mostly outrage at that advice that caused my post to get 2,800 Facebook likes and a great many comments.

So tonight, my very smart wife pointed out a connection between that post and one that Steve did earlier today, We Don’t Have 10 Trillion People. The link was the video titled “The Story of Stuff.” Steve wrote:

My old partner in crime Ken Green has one of his typically delicious op-eds out today in the Financial Post of Canada, commenting on the viral video “The Story of Stuff” that is all the rage among the green left (but I repeat myself).

Steve pointed out just one of many stupidities in “The Story of Stuff,” but Loree noted that a substitute teacher (thank goodness) had made our daughter’s class watch that video, and had then passed out a sheet of low-carbon tips that were “Inspired by the Story of Stuff.” That sheet was the basis for my post. It included such hot tips as “Hitchhike,” “Flush the toilet less,” “Write letters to large companies,” “Write a song about sustainability and put it on YouTube”–say goodbye to all your friends!–“Wear hand-me-downs,” and–my personal favorite–“Practice population control.” These were tips directed to a class of high school sophomores!

So I couldn’t resist noting that the dumb ideas propagated by the leftist producers of “The Story of Stuff” have continued to bounce around since June, doing, we hope, little damage because of their palpable stupidity. All in favor of making your teenage daughters hitchhike in order to reduce your family’s carbon footprint, raise your hands!

Liberalism is always in tension with reality; this is an instance where liberalism and reality collide head-on. You can be quite certain that there are few daughters of prominent liberals hitching rides on the nation’s highways tonight. Or going out of their way to minimize toilet flushes.

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