So we all have friends who copy/paste dubious rants into their facebook timelines, without any critical thought, without any regard for the factual content, and without a single original thought added... From today, I bring you the antidote, picking apart these irritating piles of fluff.
Our first installment is a classic "when I was your age", which I've so far seen posted by a 25 year old mother of 2 and a 45 year old truck driver...
Anyone aged approx 35 or over should read this
Well that makes 1 of you...
- copied from a friend ...
Yes, aren't they always.
Checking out at the supermarket recently, the young cashier suggested I should bring my own bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. I apologised and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days". the cashier responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations". She was right about one thing--our generation didn't have the green thing in “Our” day.
OK, so let's say our "young cashier" is probably 18. So if you're over 35, she's maybe 20 years younger than you. It doesn't strike me as likely that a supermarket cashier would actually pull someone up for not bringing their own bags -- but maybe you're outraged by the store charging a nominal fee for bags, but feel the rant works better aimed at the pesky brat than the multinational business... fair enough.
So what did we have back then?
Oh do tell us!
After some reflection and soul-searching on "Our" day here's what I remembered we did have.... Back then, we returned milk bottles, pop bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles repeatedly. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day. We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.
Economics 101... Businesses don't waste money. Energy is a major part of the cost of manufacturing anything, and isn't cheap. Sterilising those bottles takes energy, and so does making new ones, but guess what -- it turns out that new ones (made from the shredded/reconstituted remnants of the old ones, even) takes LESS energy for a given number of bottles than manufacturing 1 glass bottle, hauling it back and forth around the country (all that extra weight uses fuel...) and sterilising it after every use. It's not wasteful to make and discard plastic bottles -- quite simply if it was, the firms that do so would be put out of business by their leaner, meaner competitors with the deposit bottles. Seen any sign of that happening lately? Me either.
Harrods has had an escalator since 1898, and the elevator is marginally older, dating back to Archimedes in around 236 BC -- just how old are you if you didn't have them in your day!?
Finally... Who really drives a 300hp car? The Focus RS is a specialised, high priced, prestige sports hatchback and comes in at 305hp, but the average run of the mill Golf, Astra or Mondeo won't put out more than around 90-120hp -- and we don't walk to the store because they all bloody closed, and got replaced by big out of town superstores.
Back then, we washed the baby's nappies because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 240 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right. We didn't have the green thing back in our day.
Much like the milk bottle thing, reusable cloth nappies can take just as much energy to put through a hot wash and get dry as disposables take to manufacture -- but then, since disposables have been around since the 1940s, this is hardly relevant unless you're WAY older than you look. Tumble dryers? Well, yes, they came from the 40s too, so when you were the cashier's age they'd been around for HALF A CENTURY.
Do I need to point out the swathes of charity shops on most high streets to quash the thing about re-using clothes, or are we just going to let that one slide?
Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Wales. In the kitchen, we blended & stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right. We didn't have the green thing back then.
TVs have got bigger, but actually LCD screens draw less power for the size than old CRTs. We also have more energy efficient lightbulbs, more energy efficient heating, better insulation, and household energy consumption is as low as it's been in decades. But don't let that get in the way of a good rant, will you? Enjoy your push mower, 1940s boy. As for exercising by working... Yeah, I apologise for being part of the generation enjoying an economy that values knowledge workers and provides them with comfortable offices. So unfair of me.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then.
No, no you did none of those things, because when you were the cashier's age it was almost the end of the 20th century and the biro had been around for decades -- along with the water cooler, the plastic cup, and the disposable razor -- which, by the way, you only need to replace the blade on; the handle works great for years, and this is why you can buy packs of blades.
Back then, people took the bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mums into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint. But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we older folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?
I actually agree that cars are overused for short journeys, increasingly, since they've become more affordable. But then you go and spoil it by running your geostationary satellites 20,000 miles too low to stay in position, complain about computerized gadgets while posting to facebook, and make the bizarre claim that most people don't know where their local pizza place is. Huh?
Please post this on your Facebook profile so another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smarty-pants young person can read this!!
No, really, please don't.
Back sometime in the week with more! If you've seen an equally BS-filled rant on your news feed, let me know in the comments (email account will exist shortly) and I'll see what I can do...
