Thaaaankss!

Am I trying to be a “condescending jerk?” No. But if somebody reads my email and instead of needlessly printing it out of reflex, takes a quarter of a second to realize “you know, this Taylor guy isn’t that important and there’s NO chance I’ll need a physical copy of his message” I consider that a success. I have no illusion about reversing old-growth clear-cutting as a result of my email signature, but I do think that every little bit of attitude and habit change matters…even if the actual inputs/outputs are an insignificant proportion of the whole.

And finally, back to the generational point, I think it’s important for younger people in the workplace to not only advocate for technological solutions, but to help their coworkers adapt to a more paperless office as well as energy conservation, etc. It’s not always a generational thing, but how many 20=somethings (or readers of TechCrunch) would print all their emails?

http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/pages/page.cfm?page_id=28

When we’re talking about the environmental movement, Mr. Gore has a point – governmental action will do much, much more than individual action.

I, however, am a firm believer that this way of thinking flies in the face of history – when is large scale change ever not instigated by a single person? The examples in the 20th century alone are significant – Gandhi, Rachael Carson, Karl Marx, Martin Luther King, Jr. – the world is full of individuals who have changed it without the aid of governments. Climate change might be The Issue of the 21st century to be tackled by governments, but today’s movement had a large part to do with one Mr. Gore himself.

So I do think the criticism of people that wear those wristbands is harsh – not all of us are great enough to be Gandhi, but we all like to aspire to such ideals.