Things I CAN'T Do For the Environment
I read Disability Bitch's post yesterday and just about laughed my ass off. Earth 2.0! With no hills, mountains or storms. What an fabulous idea!
It got me to thinking about some ways in which I am forced to be less environmentally friendly because of my disability. Take transportation. Everybody knows that walking or cycling is better than driving or taking the bus, right? Well, my friends, I'm resigned to polluting the Earth a bit more than non-disabled folks, because if given the choice between walking or being transported in a vehicle, we all know which one I'm going to pick. The one that drives my codeine consumption down. I'd love to cycle to the shops, but my knees just don't bend that way.
We all know that it's better to throw on extra clothing instead of turning up the thermostat, don't we? Turning up the thermostat wastes energy. Well, call me a wastrel, because throwing on extra clothing doesn't help my joints near as much as cranking up the thermostat to a roasting 20+ Celsius. My friends always accuse me of trying to get them out of their clothes when they visit, because my apartment feels like a sauna in February. If putting on extra clothing helped, that'd be great, but my joints still feel stiff and creaky, even with two pairs of socks and three shirts.
There's also my meat consumption. Vegetarianism is better for one's ecological footprint, but if I go for longer than a week without meat, I turn cannibalistic. I'm not kidding. I get hostile, irate, and cranky. I have intrusive fantasies of tearing into people with my teeth and claws. You know you need meat when your loved ones start looking like food sources. I know a lot of people advocate vegetarianism or raw food for arthritics, but I go crazy without meat in my diet.
I do what I can to live an environmentally-friendly lifestyle, but I know that my disability prevents me from doing certain eco-friendly activities. I'm OK with that. It's all about doing what you can, when you can.
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Comments
The powers-that-be don't make it easy for Disabled people to be eco-friendly, from recycling to reliable public transport. Until they make things easier, I'm going to continue as I have always done.