As a retiree from 20 years in the U.S. armed forces, I am finally free to do certain political things. Here's one.
Like my President, and the presidential hopefuls, I now campaign to reduce carbon footprints. Please read on to know why.
Maybe you will also achieve a proper awareness, as I now enjoy.
Unlike most of my fellow Global Warming High Priests, I will use my military training and lead by example -- lead from the front. Thus I leverage time-tested battlefield leadership principles. Only in this way, can our movement (Gaia Be Praised!) overcome stubborn unbelievers, pitiful nationalism, bothersome logic, inconvenient truths, reformation superstitions, patriarchal dictators, ignorant mirror-imaging, foolish Image Of God thinking, and contrary evidence.
1. Executive Summary.
CO2 (carbon dioxide) is our current favorite-villain greenhouse gas. Fortunately (Gaia Be Praised!) it doesn't stink as much as methane. I'd have hated to be a Global Warmist back then when methane was the villain.
Each human breath converts oxygen to carbon dioxide. Deeper breathing means even more CO2. Indeed, we fight quantity as well as frequency.
Simple Solution. I vow to breathe less, and lead others to the same righteous lifestyle. It requires just one simple lifestyle change.
2. The Problem.
Exercise is the CO2 factory. Exercising requires the body to burn more energy and race to a higher metabolic state. Worse, the exercise-lean body operates at a higher metabolic rate. All this metabolizing requires more oxygen, more breathing. Hence the body is duped into making more CO2 even between exercise sessions. All this activity heats up Mother Gaia! A smokestack-era 'exercise mentality' requires more breathing, and bigger, deeper breathing at that.
On active duty, I was compelled to exercise; often, rather a lot. As a retiree, however, I can use parts of my military training as anti-examples.
3. How To Do It!
Now I, not Uncle Sam, own my body. As a retiree, a normal civilian, I can be master of my own mind. As a normal civilian, I can now decide do my part.
I will change my mindset. I will cease exercising. I will live as a sloth, hardly breathing either with quantity or depth. I will even devise methods to reduce the times that I must breathe deeply to get up onto my feet. With these simple changes of heart, mind, and works, I will reduce my personal carbon footprint to 1975 levels -- the quantity from the small lungs of a pre-pubescent eleven-year-old!
4. Like Rolling Downhill.
Advertising is always the issue. How, indeed, do we get heard in an advertising-saturated society, where even 'news' is blared 24/7 alongside real & meaningful news of the latest development in a cute blonde co-ed's murder investigation? The answer is 'antipode': speak softly, and convey a big solution. I will quietly proclaim this exercise-shunning path to planetary salvation; quietly, so as to not excite myself nor anybody else. (Remember, 'lead from the front'.) Quiet is calm. My metabolism relaxes further than by sloth alone. My very quiet example will catch attention simply because of its uniqueness. I will literally show others, quietly, meekly, The Way to a planet freer of greenhouse gasses. All will see how I reduced my personal carbon footprint to 1965 levels -- to the quantity of a one-year-old! Soon, with millions of shallow breathing converts, even our own bodies will convert and fight for us: our peacefully quiet sloth will commence to even make it hard to exercise and breathe deeply. It's a win-win situation: down with resource-abusing competition, up with glorious 'let-it-be' cooperation, comrades!
We need not worry about the Law of Unintended Consequences. As we all commence to dramatically reduce exercising and all the needless exertions required by the wasteful condition of being physically active, we will all breathe less. Even our enemies will find themselves reduced to the state of useful idiots as they unconsciously begin to breathe less: we will allow them freedom from overly exerting as they conquer us blissful pacifists contemplating our TVs. We will be in a glorious cycle, with our bodies working in harmony with our minds, and even our enemies ignorantly following along, Gaia Be Praised! This cycle will result in people of the whole world wholly converting to a sedentary lifestyle. It will usher in an age of Aquarius: a true planet-wide salvation!
In no time, we will all achieve pork-out. Soon, our slow & shallow breathing will help reduce CO2 so far that even allow Mother Earth will chill out! As we enter a state incapable of growing our own food, Mother Earth will slip into the cozy slumber of our next Ice Age. We will simply wait out the chill, living off the fat of our own bodies. Nature (Gaia Be Praised!) will recover balance, as all species will be free to recover from extinction. With advertising & example both as easy as rolling down a hill (without breathing), we will achieve harmony in the Universe!
5. Conclusion.
It's glorious, now retired from the military, finding myself finally able to be politically active about post-modern Gaia-loving inactivity!
Chill Out and Save Mother Earth!!! (Shush! Quietly!)