Word: planetful
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...scoff: Am I really going to save the planet by buying books on Barnesandnoble.com rather than Barnes & Noble at the mall? Actually, you just might. A book purchased online costs about one-sixteenth the energy of one bought in the store. For starters, it takes about 0.1 gal. (0.4 L) of fuel to ship an average 2.5-lb. (1.1-kg) book, whereas your average trip to the mall uses up 1 gal. (3.8 L) of gas. One minute spent driving, in general, uses the same amount of energy as 20 minutes' worth of time sitting at home with your computer...
...number of sales per square foot of space used. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Internet could make 12.5% of retail space superfluous. That would save around $5 billion worth of energy every year. For everything you buy with a point and a click, the planet thanks...
...what do we do? everyone knows the planet is in bad shape, but most people are resigned to passivity. Changing course, they reason, would require economic sacrifice and provoke stiff resistance from corporations and consumers alike, so why bother? It's easier to ignore the gathering storm clouds and hope the problem magically takes care of itself...
Second, poverty is central to the problem. Four billion of the planet's 6 billion people face deprivation inconceivable to the wealthiest 1 billion. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that the bottom two-thirds of humanity will strive to improve their lot. As they demand adequate heat and food, not to mention cars and CD players, humanity's environmental footprint will grow. Our challenge is to accommodate this mass ascent from poverty without wrecking the natural systems that make life possible...
...common interest, and it is a slogan easily grasped by the media and the public. Moreover, it should appeal across political, class and national boundaries, for it would stimulate both jobs and business throughout the world in the name of a universal value: leaving our children a livable planet. The history of environmentalism is largely the story of ordinary people pushing for change while governments, corporations and other established interests reluctantly follow behind. It's time to repeat that history on behalf of a Global Green Deal...