"Ten Things You Can Do To Stop Global Warming"

A refrigerator magnet appeared recently on the break room fridge at work: "Ten Things You Can Do To Stop Global Warming". I began to wonder, didn't the too-much-irony alarm bells ring anywhere in the process that brought this token of our times to this particular place. Weren't they ringing in the ears of the executive of the consumer goods manufacturer who conceived the idea, the writer who wrote the copy, or the designer that created the logo or graphics? The alarm bells were likely silent at the manufacturing plant where the plastic and magnetic fabric items were produced, encased in individual plastic sleeves, bundled in packets, boxed, shrink wrapped, cased, crated, palleted and again shrink wrapped. Wherever it was on the earth it is unlikely they spoke English and they are probably too busy dealing with the consequences of more immediate environmental catastrophes anyway. Probably they were inaudible in the din as the pallet was trucked from manufacturer to warehouse to ship to shipping warehouse to warehouse distributer where it was broken down, uncrated, shelved, then reassembled, reshrink wrapped, boxed, fedexed as a part of an order from my company. Certainly the too-much-irony bells would have been audible for the admin who received the packets and fedexed them out to all the other admins at all of our satellite offices throughout the world. I'd like to think, at least, that they were ringing like a case of tinnitus for my office's admin as she unwrapped the individual plastic sheath and took the elevator down to my floor to slap it on our single-use-plastic-water-bottle-ladened break room refrigerator.

- J