8)
Winter’s coming, and you know what that means, don’t you genius? It means that it’s gonna get cold. I’ll give you a moment to collect yourself for not having known that winter = cold.

This year, instead of being a Greedy Gus** and wasting precious coal and gas and oil and electricity to heat your ridiculously huge McMansion or whatever tiny shithole you live in, why not just suck it up and crank the thermostat down as far as it can go? Why does everything have to be 72 degrees with you? Why are you such a “temperature queen?”

It’s time to face some facts. If you are an American adult, there is a 60% chance you are either overweight or obese. (Actually, it’s higher than 60%. I just said it was 60% to make you feel better.) Here’s another fact: you can burn up to 400 calories per hour just by shivering! So the new plan for energy conservation and fat loss is:

* Set your thermostat to 33 degrees.
* Shiver for at least three hours per day.
* Wear sweaters and blankets to keep warm until Spring. The colder it is, the more blankets you’ll have to shlep around the house and that equals exercise!

This year you’re gonna stop being an energy hog like that Greedy Gus I mentioned earlier and stop being a blight upon America’s reputation for its sexy people!

[c] 2011 Russ of America

** No offense to my real life friend Gus, who is not greedy at all. To be honest, I don’t know why I picked his name. It’s totally not fair and I could have removed it during the editing process. But I guess transparency is important to me.

7)
Getting water to major metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles is no joke. It requires a big, old, failing infrastructure, pushed to its limits with the influx of new dreamy-eyed residents into Southern California each year. To make matters worse, SoCal wants to be a desert. That’s its natural state. So it’s no surprise that residents are experiencing the panic and discomfort of its perpetual drought. Naturally, our state leaders wait until June to amp up awareness and pepper the airwaves with water conservation PSAs in a futile hope that people will realize how serious our annual water shortage is and then cooperate. Of course, by June it’s too late and we’re deep in water debt again and the legislature has to pass emergency laws to control that greedy a-hole neighbor of yours who waters his dead lawn twice a day. But water shortages don’t just happen in Los Angeles. They happen in Yourtown, USA and will continue to do so as our climate gets warmer and warmer.

Now, I’m assuming you’re not one of those jerks who has to take two showers a day, right? You just take one shower before you go to bed like a responsible person, I hope. That’s good, but you could easily skip a day of showering. You probably don’t work too hard. Probably just sit in an office all day or work at Blockbuster or something. Skip a day! If you don’t think you can skip a day, just wash your crucial areas. You know, the areas where you have lots of folds. You probably have a bunch of left over KFC wet-naps in your kitchen drawer — use those to get a good cleaning. Yeah, maybe you’ll smell a little more earthy, but believe me, you didn’t smell all that great to begin with, with all that nasty cologne you drown yourselves in, so the difference is negligible.

And to all of you scrawny Yoga-loving chicks who tote around water bottles like it’s your personal Lord and savior, try to remember that you’re not the only person who gets thirsty, yeah? Other people like to drink water besides you. So maybe you can leave some water for the rest of us? Maybe cut your consumption in half? If your urine is crystal clear you’re drinking WAY too much water. Urine is supposed to be dark yellow and thick like marmalade. Look it up. And frankly, with all that water you drink, you pee way too often. That’s not good; You’re going to wear out your bladder and urethra and become a drain on our health system.

Sure, you yoga-loving scrawny chicks who drink too much water are probably using those “low-flush” toilets, but do you really need to flush after each time? You probably waste more water flushing your pee than you produce in pee itself! If you drink a quart of water, eliminate 3 cups and then flush it away with 1.6 gallons of water, there’s a problem. A big wasteful problem. It requires about 6x more water to dispose of your pee than you originally consumed! How exactly do you perceive yourself as such an amazing down-to-earth environmentally-conscious spiritual-type if you’re blowing your thimbleful of wizz down the drain with a gallon and a half of fresh, clean drinking water? Exactly! Wastrel! So to bring everything back to equilibrium you should only flush every eighth piss, give or take, depending on volume. Don’t like that idea? Pee in the sink and wipe the bowl clean with a damp rag. Or pee in your garden. It’s natural. Now what about deuces? Here are two ideas: (1) Only flush every second or third deuce, again depending on volume. Now you’re wondering if it’s a good idea to flush 2 or 3 deuces worth of TP down the drain. No, it probably isn’t. But the second thing you should be doing is (2) recycling and even reusing your toilet paper. How much toilet paper do you waste each time you make? Tons. Some of it only has a little mark on it. Spray it with isopropyl alcohol, dry it out and use it again. If you’re concerned about suppressing the odor in the bowl, keep a bucket of sawdust next to the bowl and when you’re done, sprinkle the patty lightly with it. That will help to contain the odor. Switch to a bidet if you don’t want to recycle TP, but install a water-saving high-pressure blast nozzle on the bidet and be quick about rinsing yourself, and only after every third deuce. Or even better, a damp rag and isopropyl alcohol (ask your doctor if this is right for you.)

I hope these ideas have given you some new positive ways to help care for our environment. Remember that protecting the environment doesn’t just mean that you put your ballpoint pens in used pickle jars. Environmentalism is a lifestyle that should encompass everything you do. Like it’s a religion.

[c] 2009 Russ of America

I’ve got a big bucket of compost brewing, 2 catnip plants, some tomatoes, bell peps, cukes, green onions, ficuses, basil, rosemary, lavender, jasmine, some stupid ferns, a couple of spider plants and two philodendrons — I’m a a bloody farmer! And I’d grow opium in the community garden if I thought nobody would swipe it. I’d go out there every morning in my robes, dismount my camel, and toil in the 14′x4′ plot all day, tending to the rows of poppies. Let’s bring heroin back to American soil again! Our two most precious resources, oil and heroin we buy from the middle-east. I’m telling you America, we’ve got to get wise about these things or they will be our undoing…

[c] 2009 Russ of America

6)
Caring about your environment isn’t limited to recycling and alternative fuels. Caring about your environment includes the aesthetics as well. Nothing kills the spirit of a good neighborhood like graffiti, but police department resources are often incapable of making graffiti enforcement a priority, especially in bigger cities where more serious crimes are being committed. So it is important that citizens take action and set up neighborhood watch groups. Share your phone numbers and report suspicious activity to each other to keep everyone in the loop. Graffiti can occasionally be indicative of other crimes occurring in the neighborhood, like gang activity and drug sales.

When citizens band together to report vandalism, sometimes the police will increase patrols in the area. If that doesn’t work, the neighborhood watch should elect a “Graffiti Sniper” — a protected, anonymous member of the community, who holes up on a rooftop with a bb rifle. If the Graffiti Sniper sees a first-offender apply graffiti to a surface in the community, the vandal will be shot repeatedly in the body with a ball bearing until s/he puts down the can and runs away. If the offender repeats the crime, s/he will be shot with a pellet. If the artist attempts to deface property a third time, the pellet gun will be set aside, and a small-caliber rifle will be used. For each additional offense, the caliber will increase. If the Graffiti Sniper can identify the transgressor as a member of the community, the neighborhood watch will be empowered to make contact with the family to notify them of the crime. This can be done in a number of ways including face-to-face communication, a brick through the window, arson, or chasing the family out of town with pitchforks and torches. Some sociologists say that these kids just need an outlet for their artistic expression. That’s a legitimate argument! After their house is burned down, irresponsible parents will be incentivized to buy a canvas and some finger paints for their little antisocial motherfuckers.

Environmentalism is love for Mother Earth and for each other.

[c] 2009 Russ of America

RCoA and his lovely GF observed Earth Hour tonight at 8:30pm by turning off the lights for one hour. RCoA’s two cats are mostly unaffected, except that Cat #2′s heating blanket is being turned off as well. The other cat doesn’t use electricity. Cities, villages and towns across the world are taking advantage of this event to vocalize their feelings about global warming and the future of worldwide energy. For me it’s a statement against our voracious appetites for energy. In my humble domicile, I am also attempting to reduce other electrical usage in the hut where practical. The folks at EarthHour.org did, for example, encourage bloggers to write live posts about their event, which we would be unable to do if we turned off our routers and DSL modems. I opted to use my laptop battery to power my internets. That should cut down a few watts over the hour… Dare I pull the plug on the refrigerator too? Why not.

I’m aware of Earth Hour counter-protesters. I couldn’t really find a cogent argument for why they were doing it, except just to be contrary and to mock the “sheeples.” It’s sort of ironic if the core of your enlightened protest against the sheeples is to do exactly the opposite of what they say. Kinda makes you a knee-jerk anti-sheeple, and I’m not sure which is worse. Most of the sites I accessed seemed to be run either by ultra-conservatives or the anti-Illuminati. The ultra-conservatives usually have their hackles up against anything even remotely liberal, and that’s fair, I guess. Earth Hour seems like a fairly left-wing idea so I guess I understand where they’re coming from. They’re being consistent. But some members of the conservative groups also vocalized tangential protests, like how they would turn on the engines of their gas guzzlers and burn a few steaks on the bbq and smoke cigars as double, triple and quadruple protest! Wow. You tell those liberals! The anti-Illuminati types seemed to be against participating in environmental issues because it is a form of mind-control and possibly a mechanism of that dark New World Order spook. Oh, and there was a presence from the Ayn Rand disciples who essentially perceive Earth Hour to be a suppression of the symbolic achievements mankind has made from cave to skyscraper. An hour of elective darkness against millions of years of mankind? I don’t get the comparison.

I’m not a scientist and I don’t have access to the global warming statistics, nor would I know how to interpret them convincingly enough to counter all arguments from either of the groups mentioned above. I do know that America is a gluttonous country that seems to be progressing and consuming far quicker than its infrastructure will allow. Energy has a cost no matter how it is produced, and wasting any bit of it is foolish. Burning coal, a finite resource, to produce electricity is neither a good long-term solution to America’s energy needs nor is it conducive to clean air. I don’t understand how turning on more lights in protest of EarthHour is going to add to national coal stockpiles. Moot if you don’t live in a coal region maybe, but valid if you do. And if you are one of the stogie-puffing chest-thumpers who are snarkily igniting your sport-futility vehicle engines to teach the liberals a lesson, your point has been made, and kudos to you for being wealthy enough to take last year’s ridiculous gas prices on the chin, or to eagerly and freely donate the lives of your corn-fed youth to fight oil wars so that you can retain your god-given right to drive your over-powered urban assault vehicles.

Environmentalism as religion is no good, I agree. Environmentalism for many is nothing more than a personal sport and it has roots in the old camping rule, that you leave your campsite in the same or better condition than you found it. The wastrels don’t understand that, and that’s why many Americans hate camping alongside you.

RCoA

[c] 2009 Russ of America

5)
Don’t eat like a slob and you won’t use as many napkins.
Use your fork to put food IN your mouth instead of just mashing it into the general vicinity. When you stop eating by the handful, that’s when the real impact to paper napkins is seen.

[c] 2009 Russ of America

4)
If you like to have sex with the lights on, consider switching to compact fluorescent bulbs, which can save up to 75% of the energy required to light an incandescent bulb of comparable illumination.

Alternatively, it is an even greener practice to continue to have sex with the lights off, which should be mandatory for most of you.

[c] 2008 Russ of America

Russ of America’s Green Earth Tips

3)
If you’ve gotten pregnant by accident and you’re on the fence about what to do, remember that abortion is the most environmentally responsible choice. The termination of an accidental pregnancy will really save a lot of natural resources and will help to protect our pristine wetlands. If you’re not sure, think about all the diapers you would have tossed nonchalantly into a landfill. And all of those plasticized Capri Sun packets and Chocodile wrappers, and the batteries you would have bought for all of his stupid toys. And once he was old enough to drink Red Bull, think of all the cans he’d simply toss away because he was too drunk to know better. And all of the menthol cigarette butts that would end up in the storm drain and the quarts of dirty motor oil he’d abandon behind the AutoZone, and electricity and water he’d waste. And you know that because you didn’t raise him right, one day this little macho jerk will one day want to drive the biggest gas-guzzling sport-futility vehicle in America.

While the religious are correct that the immortal soul is created with the first cell division, The soul can’t die, right? So we’re good! Fuck it! Pull the plug on that gurgling blemish before he can fuck up our glorious nation! It’s the responsible thing to do. : D

[c] 2008 Russ of America

Russ of America’s Green Earth Tips

2)
Please help to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. It’s important that you use water-based jack-off cremes instead of ones with petroleum bases. It’s also important that you tell your congressional representative that you are opposed to off-shore drilling because you have plenty of stars-and-stripes, union-friendly jack-off options here at home.

[c] 2008 Russ of America

I care about the environment, so I have lots of tips on how to improve things. Here’s one:

Russ of America’s Green Earth Tips

1)
Instead of crumbling up the Kleenex after you’re done, hang it out to dry so that you re-use it instead of jerking off into a new one each day.

[c] 2008 Russ of America