From the bowels of examiner.com (San Fransisco, of course, via Cleveland) comes this bit of dreck:
And you know what? Enviroweenies deserve the sort of wedding guest Patti Lew suggests you should be. Here's all you have to do...
1) Avoid snail mail. RSVP online or via phone if you can. This will save another piece of mail having to go through the system of being trucked and flown across the country and releasing carbon emissions.
Wedding invitations release carbon emissions? Who knew?
2) Try not to buy a gift off-registry. You want to make sure the wedding couple will truly enjoy and use the gift you give them, so pick from what you know they already want.
Especially if they want things like fireplace tool sets, large outdoor grills or a bolt-on turbo kit for their 4x4 monster truck.
3) Opt out of the extra gift wrapping if you’re having the wedding gift shipped. Not only will it save you an extra $5, the wedding couple will appreciate not having to deal with tossing out yet another box and spool of ribbon. Just think, most items already come in their own store packaging. If you get it gift wrapped, they’ll stick that into a gift box, and then stick the gift box into yet another box for shipping. Why ship one item in three boxes?
Nothing says thoughtfulness like sending that his-and-hers sex toy gift pack in the original packaging.
4) Give Green. Donate to a charity that’s meaningful to the couple, in their name. Or give a micro-loan through Kiva. You can make a loan in their name to the country they’ll be honeymooning in, or give them the power to change lives themselves with a Kiva gift certificate. Not only will the couple get the funds back to spend on something they like later — or use it to re-lend to someone else in need — but you’ll also be giving an impoverished entrepreneur a chance to succeed.
Nothing says "I'm a sanctimonious twat" like passing up buying someone a useable gift so you can send money to Al Gore so he can fly around the world 28 times this year. And didn't you just say not to buy off the registry?
5) Travel light. Carpool with other guests to the wedding site. (This is also great for arranging a designated driver.) If traveling, share a rental car, and don’t forget to choose a hybrid if you can.
Sure, rent a Toyota Prius and then try jamming four people and some luggage into it. That ought to guarantee everyone being in a pleasant mood upon arrival.
6) Stay in a green hotel. You can find listings for sustainable hotels at the Green Hotels Association and Environmentally Friendly Hotels sites.
Why not put a pup-tent in your Prius?
7) Hold onto your wine glass or drinking glass throughout the event and reuse it. If you’re going to have another round of the same drink, ask the bartender to just give you a refill instead of a brand new glass that they’ll have to wash. Also consider using the same glass for the champagne toast.
I dare anyone to suggest the above as a way of being "green" to a group of strangers. I'll lay out cold hard cash that you can't do it and either (a) keep a straight face, or (b) have at least one of the strangers laugh in your face.
8) Eat green. Pick the vegetarian option for your entree. According to the United Nations report, Livestock's Long Shadow, meat is the number one cause of global warming. Raising animals for food generates more greenhouse-gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined — that includes all cars, trucks, trains, ships, and planes in the world.
And if there isn't a vegetarian option, bring a pb&J sandwich and some carrot sticks so you can wave off the entree and show everyone what kind of enviroweenie you really are. Better yet, bring a casserole dish of organic tofu surpise so you can share...
9) Purchase carbon offsets for your transportation and lodging, and for your footprint at the wedding event itself. San Francisco based TerraPass and CarbonFund.org both have wedding specific carbon footprint calculators that you can use for you and whoever is in tow.
Lots of enviroweenies seem to have ungodly amounts of time on their hands. You have to think up this sort of nonsense.
10) _____________. Tip number ten is up to you. Share ways that you’ve been a green wedding guest by emailing patti@greenereverafter.com. The top ideas will be compiled and posted in a future Green Weddings article.
It would seem to me that number 10 could simply be that one skips the wedding altogether. Of course, if anyone tries out a couple of Patti's suggestions, there's an excellent chance they'll never be invited to a wedding again anyway. Problem solved!
Very droll, Dennis
Posted by: badanov | June 14, 2009 at 10:34 PM
10) Send the future groom a photo-shopped picture of the bride to be performing a little post game fellatio in the locker room of your nearest professional sports franchise.
E-mail the bride to be a photo-shopped picture of her fiance performing fellatio in the locker room of your nearest professional sports team.
The wedding will be called off! Trees will be saved, animals will live another day and the ozone will thank you.
Posted by: Pazzesco | June 14, 2009 at 10:46 PM
Hey, I am all for saving the planet. But how many weddings does the average person attend in a year ? And whats wrong with having a little fun once in a while. Some people have WAY too much time on their hands. Maybe they should spend it planting trees ! And leave the rest of us alone .
Posted by: shrubnose | June 15, 2009 at 08:25 AM
Pazzesco-
Make sure you email those photos, because they give off carbon emmissions when you mail them.
Posted by: Dennis the Peasant | June 15, 2009 at 09:04 AM
It's like that idea for the ecological pizza box. It is all, as my grandmother would say, 'penny-wise, pound-foolish.'
Posted by: Eric Blair | June 15, 2009 at 09:47 AM
It doesn't matter how green your wedding is, that "hack" John Ringo was on to something...
Posted by: richard mcenroe | June 15, 2009 at 10:16 AM
#10: Steal and send a wedding invitation to Amanda. She can then hector all the other guests there about how "fucking green" she is. The guests will all leave very early and reduce the overall carbon footprint of the reception.
Bonus: a party truely to remember.
Posted by: Allen | June 15, 2009 at 02:58 PM
BTW, Dennis, what's you take if any on Kasich?
Posted by: richard mcenroe | June 15, 2009 at 07:45 PM
Richard-
Six months ago Kasich wouldn't have bothered running. But Gov. Ted Strickland has been so completely bizarre since last November, I now think Kasich has a chance.
Back then Strickland came out with a whopping $3+ billion education reform package and then tried to sell the idea that we wouldn't need a tax increase to pay for it... despite the fact that Ohio had a $2.7 billion shortfall to address without education reform spending. His funding proposal was all smoke and mirrors, and was put together not by the educational bureaucracy, but by a prominent Democratic power broker here in Columbus. The whole thing has left just about everyone scratching their heads in wonder.
Kasich has an uphill battle, but if Strickland doesn't get himself back on planet Earth soon, he may be a one term governor.
Posted by: Dennis the Peasant | June 15, 2009 at 09:31 PM
Kiva is pretty cool though.
Bypasses all the friggin' aid agencies, the Peace Corps types turning up from Manhattan to show peasant farmers how to farm.
Quite simply you're making a loan direct to an entrepreneur. They pay that loan back to you over time and you can withdraw the funds or lend it on again. It's simply direct microfinance.
Not a bad way of keeping a few hundred dollars (for that the average laon size) circulating in the Third World and making it a better place by fundng capitalism.
Posted by: Tim Worstall | June 16, 2009 at 04:57 AM