Green E-mail

Hello everyone-

I’ve heard (but not received any actual emails) that there is growing concern over our paper usage, and indeed the types of paper we carry here at PB. I realize our green team works very hard to assuage the guilt that come with not being a totally paperless, sun-powered society, and I feel I should do my part to help. So, in this spirit of partnership renewed (thanks, in part, to a glorious Earth Day, complete with diesel-powered ticker-tape parade) with Mother Earth, I have made the following improvements in our purchasing:

All paper is now being purchased from the Farben-Nefarious Corporation. I have been guaranteed that not one tree has been cut down to make this paper, as it is extruded via Play-Doh-like machines from a substance known as ‘Soylent White’. They have given me verbal and written guarantees that this paper will not only preserve our forests, but actually assist in solving our pressing concerns of global overpopulation. I’m not exactly how this works, but I can only assume that they provide excellent, comprehensive insurance for their employees, or possibly some sort of overseas birth control education for those less fortunate than us, say, for instance, Portugal.

We will now receive toner from the FNC as well, bringing their new oceanic-preservation work to our, and the worlds, attention. For the ink they produce is no chemical mishmash, not some Elliot Bay death bringer, but produced from the ocean itself. I am talking of course of one of mans (and truly all of natures) most hated creatures, the class Cephalopoda, of the phylum Mollusca. We know these embodiments of evil as the squid, octopus, and nautilus. Countless tales of giant squid mercilessly attacking ships, whales, electric cars, fish, sea serpents, recycling plants, buoys, Atlantis, submersibles, elderly voters, and babies exist, and one company has bravely taken up the banner of Earth to eradicate this most heinous of sea-scourges. No longer will we, as land-loving bipedal caretakers of our planet, be threatened by these rotten, black-hearted thugs of the sea, seeking only to burst oil tankers and befoul our blue-green orb. And octopi drive SUVs and smoke cigars, so they have that against them, too.

So there we have the beginnings, what I would like to call the cloth pieces from which we shall make a ‘green’ quilt of sustainablility. Of course, it would be more relevant to lessen our transportation emissions, since we are in the top five states in the nation (at 52.4 percent) for percentage of CO2 emissions coming from those darn cars. According to a February report from the state's Department of Community, Trade & Economic Development, emissions from utilities make up just 16 percent of the 88.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gases, including CO2, our state produces annually. The real culprit, according to the report, is "transportation". Of course across the board, we are still better at the overall problem than most states, but why compare ourselves to Texas anyway?

Allen