Why Saving the Earth is Hard

posted at 9:38 pm
on Jul. 5, 2005

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I went to Office Depot recently to buy a new batch of business envelopes.  Here was the choice that awaited me:

Choice 1: Regular envelopes: $7.46

Choice 2: Envelopes made from recycled paper: $15.46

Choice 3: Security envelopes: $16.20

So here’s my thinking at the time.

“I’m often sending checks or sensitive information, so I ought to buy the security envelopes.  But that costs a lot more.  Instead, I could buy regular envelopes and just wrap some things I send in an extra layer of paper.  But that wastes paper.”

“However, I could buy the recycled envelopes, and that would compensate for the wasted paper.  Or if they had recycled security envelopes, I could buy those.  But they’d probably be way too much, and I can’t afford to send mail if it cosrs me that much per envelope.”

“But still, I’m spending a bunch of extra money for recycled envelopes. Maybe what I really ought to do is buy the regular envelopes, take the money I would have spent and donate it to some organization that’s working more directly to save the environment.  Or even better, on keeping the population down, because ultimately, population growth is the biggest problem facing the world.”

“But do I really need to give extra money to charity every time I could have bought something more expensive that was better for the Earth?  Because if I do that, then I need to give all my money away immediately, because there’s always some thing I’m not buying that is supposed to save the earth.”

“Hey, do they think I’m weird, standing in from of the envelopes, talking to myself for five minutes and taking pictures? I better pick one and get out of here.”

So, which envelopes did I buy?  Which would you have bought?

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