When a friend says, “what’s the use?” and she’s driving a Prius, eating organic and xeriscaping her yard to save water, I have to listen up. I’m one of those women who says, “Every difference makes a difference.” And she, Theresa, is making a big difference. In addition to having bought a hybrid car, she also works from home and so avoids commuting and polluting the earth.
But “what’s the use?”
She was reciting her day, a day when she did do some driving and was surrounded by enormous pickup trucks -- all of the shiny, urban cowboy variety, useless gas-guzzlers -- and also by Hummers and over-sized SUVS which, despite the price of gas, continue to be popular hereabouts. What difference does it make, she was wanking, that I conserve and recycle and all that and everyone else just goes on their wasteful ways? What difference! (It was a hot day, and neither of us was in the most patient of moods.)
I didn’t have an answer, still don’t, except “every difference makes a difference” and that there will come a tipping point when it’s no longer fashionable to drive over-sized guzzlers.
