I do my best not to argue, especially with strangers, even more especially with strangers on the internet. But for some reason I remembered this morning, as I mowed my yard for the last time a time, I felt obligated to do just that.
Years ago, about this time a friend and I where having a discussion under her Facebook status about getting ready for winter. One of her friends comments about her "asshole of an old man neighbor who was running his outboard boat motor in his garage, spewing pollution into the air." She went on and on for a long paragraph about how this old guy didn't care about the environment.
Even though I knew better, this woman's comments struck a nerve with me. So I politely commented that all he was doing was winterizing his outboard, And that what he was doing help ensure that the motor will run properly in the future. And in the long run this would cause less pollution.
I should have stopped there, but of course I went on to say that while it may appear he's wasting gas and polluting the air no reason, is it any worse than someone running an outboard motor in a lake? Since they are serving no purpose other than personal enjoyment by going fishing, pleasure cruising or maybe water skiing; they are not accomplishing anything productive or required for daily life. In reality, maybe the guy enjoyed sitting in his garage watching the motor run, is that really anymore environmentally unfriendly than motoring around a lake simply for enjoying the view?
Of course I was called an asshole for pointing this out, but I couldn't help it. Too often we see something and scream about how wrong it is for whatever reason, but fail to realize how similar that act is to things we deem acceptable environmentally, socially, politically, etc,
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