Fellow citizens of the blue planet, Happy Earth Day 2011!
All over the nation, people are gathering en masse to celebrate, both in appreciation of the natural world and because they want to raise awareness about some of today’s environmental woes: climate change, saving the polar bears, whales and sea turtles of the world, and preserving those beautiful, high-definition, TV-quality places featured in the “Planet Earth” series from being encroached upon by another Stepford wives subdivision.
When asked, most people would say that they support these issues (how else are you going convince that cute hippie chick in Greek history to sleep with you?) But at the end of the day, have you really done anything to help?
So what does it take to be a true environmentalist?
Recycling the 50 Budweiser cans that you and your friends drank at that party last Friday? Sure, by selling them to the Kiwanis Club, you can get enough beer money for this weekend’s party. Buying organic avocados? (Flown in from Chile of course). Well, they’re kind of expensive.
Showering once a week? (Nah, then you’re just a smelly hippie). Giving up your sweet ride in favor of traveling by foot? That sounds like a pain in the ass. Not eating meat? Forget that. Meat’s tasty. Stop flying on airplanes? Hell no, I love to travel! Who doesn’t?
Most well-educated Americans are aware of ways that they could change their lifestyle to help “save the planet.” But by and large, they don’t bother.
Let’s face it, America rocks (to quote “Team America: World Police”: “America! Fuck yeah!”), and we wouldn’t give up our luxurious lifestyle for the world.
Are you willing to become the exception, a role model for others?
Think you have the cajones to be a true environmentalist? Did you stop eating meat? Check. Ditched your wheels? Check! Decided not to have kids in an effort to curb global population growth? Ultra check. All of these little (or not so little) “green acts,“ combined with the actions of other like-minded individuals, have the potential to curb the rapidly accelerating environmental degradation that we’ve inflicted on our home planet.
These actions also have the potential to make us happier, healthier human beings — people who stroll to work in the morning and stop to smell the flowers, people who stop eating Big Macs and shed the freshmen 15. You know, those people who spend more time in nature, appreciating what’s left of the world’s natural beauty.
But maybe this isn’t enough for you. Are you ready to hear the final solution?
If you are, join me in my Earth Day toast. Raise your glasses high, folks! Today, we toast not with delicious, hoppy IPA from Marble Brewery, but a substance far more powerful: a toxic cocktail of poison hemlock, black mamba venom and a local favorite, contaminated drinking water from Los Alamos National Laboratory.
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Rather than watch your grandkids choke on the smog-filled city air, playing in rivers filled with garbage, catching three-legged mutant frogs, why not put an end to it all now?
Imagine the tremendous impact that this simple act could have on the world, multiplied over thousands! Millions, even, of like minded-Americans! Freed of millions of inhabitants, the Earth will have room to breathe again.
I’ve even made arrangements for the bodily remains of today’s Earth Day participants to be flown to the gates of the Arctic, where they will be left as an offering to the polar bears who are now starving as a result of our actions as humans.
And that will only be the first part of your sacrifice for the planet.
No more food will be grown, no more water polluted, no more fossil fuels burned on your behalf. And that act, multiplied by millions across the United States, is what the Earth really needs from us.
So invite your friends! Make a Facebook event! Alert your followers on Twitter! ¡Viva la revolution! Join me in raising my glass today to make the ultimate sacrifice and become a legend, a martyr, whose name will be passed down through the ages.
Be forever remembered as one of those who saved the planet.
Martín is a former ASUNM senator, UNM alumna and self-proclaimed “Enviro-Nazi.”
