Kamp Krusty Fixes the Environment

Kamp Krusty already solved poverty, but, it turns out, college professors weren't caring enough.  So, sadly, poverty is not yet history.  Turns out, academics like keeping things, you know, academic.

So, next modest proposal:  How about saving our very, very, very fragile Earth?  I'm with those folks who say we Americans have become so addicted to our lifestyle that we're going to have to make some hard choices.  We need to make some sacrifices that will change our very way of life, even if it threatens our current ideas of "prosperity". 

These will be unpopular choices, yes, but what good is protecting our lifestyle, if the planet is destroyed? 

Answer:  None good.  Zero good. 

That's why we should abolish mass-schooling.

It'll save about five BILLION bus miles, right off the bat.  That's 5,000,000,000 miles, yearly, including extra-curricular trips.  Think of the exhaust fumes, the fossil fuels -- five BILLION miles!  Every year! 

And that's not even counting the cars.  Billions more miles with millions of cars, cramming roadways every morning and afternoon, students and staff, belching Earth-threatening gases into the sky. 

And imagine, if you can, the energy usage of more than 120,000 large facilities!  Billions of climate-controlled square feet, the massive expenditure of electricity for air conditioning and heating, not to mention the wanton, and lasting, environmental damage involved in construction, the habitats and green coverage paved to make room for parking lots -- mass-schooling is suicide for the environment, let's face it.

Of course, my family already participates in this plan, but teaching our kids here at home, as we believe Earth is worth saving, but maybe you disagree with that, and you hate the Earth.  I can respect that.

Yes, closing mass factory-style schools will be a sacrifice.  But we've been warned about that.  Yes, it will have an impact on our American way of life...but we knew that would have to happen.  Yes, this will meet with stiff resistance from those entrenched special-interests we've heard about, but that's what happens when you advocate for change.  Stupid special-interests. 

Yes, it will make education more difficult for many.  But answer this question:  How much value is your education if the Earth is destroyed?  Huh?  None value, that's how much.

Environmentally-conscious Americans will take heed.  Of course, those with heads in the sand will continue to prop up the current Earth-destroying system, all the way to the coming environmental apacolypse. 

Or apocalypse.  I'm not sure which.

Comments

[alexg]

Well, I don't know about mass schooling. I'd be happy, though, if the stores would stop giving away plastic bags. We could bring our own bags to the store! We could have to pay for a plastic bag if we forgot our own! I bet that would save a lot.
That's what I vote for.
Yes, I know I missed the entire point of your post.

[[rhymes with kerouac]]

What if my mom's an out of work alcoholic and I haven't seen my dad in two years and the third boyfriend my mom's had this year hits me when she's not around. Can I still go to school?

Please?

[From Brant: Oh, so you'd rather condemn the whole planet to destruction? Interesting.]

[brainondrugs]

Good plan! Then teachers will have fall, winter and spring off too!

But you're not taking this far enough. We should all stop driving and live in walking/biking distance from work. Then if we quit using our computers and radios the environmental impact would be... Oh wait... you're out of a job too? Hmmm...

I like the idea, but I'm guessing that more Americans would rather condemn their kids to an environmental apocalypse than turn that ship around.

[Coralie]

I don't believe in global warming, and I bet if we abolished government schools, fewer people in a generation would believe in it too. That's certainly a way to save the planet.

[Tim Maynard]

I love this post

[shaun]

Dude,
You aren't even going to mention Bio-diesel? Cmon man.
Oh I agree that mass schooling is not only suicide for our environment, but for our kids too. God didn't make cookie cutter kids, why do we assume that we can use cookie cutter curriculum to educate them? If we just stop the system from killing the desire to learn naturally inherent in our kids , they will learn & learn well.
But I still think you should at least mention alternative fuels or like using a clothesline instead of a dryer.
Peace

[swordfishBob]

But in 2007 the earth cooled as much as it had warmed over the previous decade. We should drive more so this trend doesn't continue and plunge us into an ice age! Except for the price of fuel. And if we do what you say, people won't have the education to realise how bad my grammar is in this post.

[Samuel Adams]

What do we do with all the unemployed teachers, principals, etc...?

[maryann]

it really boils down to...what can I do?
what are the things that I can do to prevent the environmentla disaster?

i give my dogs fresh clean water a couple times a day...and the whole time i am thinking "this is more clean drinkable water than an entire village in Africa sees in a week!(month)"

i bought myself some of those canvas bags so i am not inundated with 50 individually wrapped items (in plastic bags) from the grocery store.

got a couple "green living" books and have taken some steps there.....but wow! is it gonna be enough?

have we gone past the tipping point?

i used to be a flagwaving, head-in-the-sand...jesus is coming back any day so it doesnt matter what we do to the Earth kind of Christian.
i am now seeing with different eyes and want to make big changes to help the world be a better place for EVERYONE...not just my self and my kids and grandkids...

[Molly]

Amen, from an unschooler who has many other reasons to close(or seriously revamp) those lovely "government schools".

[Brant]

I appreciate your concerns...but, point is, the planet is on the brink, so we have to make some tough choices. Yes, this will change the lifestyle of millions of Americans negatively.

But we need the courage to face change, and leadership to embrace it. The environmental impact of mass-schooling (remember, there are 30,000 private schools that need to be closed, too) is massive. Time to reduce our carbon footprint for the sake of all humankind, rather than just thinking about the ol' USA.

This'll do it.

[Dr Mike]

This is a great start, one that will naturally lead to the discontinuance of other sources of harmful effects on our environment. Take, for example, the horrible damage done to the ozone layer due to excessive flatulence: unlit methane from the alimentary canal is wreaking havoc on the atmosphere!

Thus, I propose banning fat cows (see Amos 4) and teenage boys. Beer farts are especially odious and, besides, there are few things worse than drunk cows. Especially when they drive those big SUVs.

[rob smith]

Interesting that some people take the opportunity to get subtle bashes into public schools here, and miss the entire point. Or, perhaps I am missing the point?

[From Brant: The only points are as follows...

1) My family is more environmentally conscious than yours, so we win, and

2) Usually, the "hard choices" we're being asked to make are in-line with goals already shared by those advocating for "hard choices". If we venture outside of these prior goals, well, forget it, and

3) While we're drilled to inspect the smallest of actions for environmental impact, we are also not to ask questions about some behaviors/institutions that actually have a tremendous impact on the environment, and

4) The "earth is in the balance" argument can be advanced for anything, or the abolition of anything, because the future of our planet certainly must trump all, right, but

5) People who advocate for this view really don't want their own lifestyles crimped, after all.

That's all.

Except for

6) Homeschooling, separate from the politics of evangelicalism and teachers unions and turf issues and so forth, could easily be recast as an environmentally-friendly endeavour, because it actually is, and

7) Here's hoping we all respect the environment, in a genuine manner, using genuine science founded in genuine freedom of inquiry, rather than using it as a lever for political agenda that pre-dates crises that may well be contrived in service of that agenda. And that's a crappily-written sentence, and

8) Seems like fair minds could acknowledge that mass-schooling, regardless of benefit to society, actually has a significantly detrimental environmental impact. Unless we're scared to say it for some reason -- say, because we can only countenance information that buttresses our existing political and lifestyle commitments.

That's all I was sayin'. That said, I don't actually want our schools shut down, and God bless our teachers and administrators and students.]

[Seaton]

It's apocalypse.

[rob smith]

Thanks...I actually did get the point(s). I do concede to you victory. However, I still think I win the Rose/Boggs debate.

And, Vin Zuber rode his bike to school...so there.

[Rebecca]

I'm with you all the way.

Next step, let's look at Sunday school. Have you seen all the stuff that comes home with the kids? Man, you got all those paper lessons, you got the hand-made crafts, you got the styrofoam cups with the left-over goldfish crackers. Multiply that by 5 zillion kids. Just think how we'd be reducing our environmental footprint.

And then, take Mother's Day. Look at all those cards and those envelopes, and.....

[amy]

BRANT!!!! Here we had just decided that sending our kid to public mass kindergarten was the best way for us to get out of the Christian subculture bubble and save the world by introducing our awesome kid (and by association our awesome family) as light in a dark - albeit doomed - earth - which by the way is a very hard choice for us - and you go and post something like this.

What if we ride our bikes to drop her off? Would that be okay?

[Scott]

" I don't actually want our schools shut down"

You're flip flopping!! Now I can't vote for you for prez!!

[Steve Mac]

Biodiesel? Why not. Let's plant even more bio-fuel crops and make sure that millions of people who could potentially use up too much energy starve to death due to the cropping land shortage.

[RevJeff]

OK Brant - GAME ON...

You sanctimonious non-schooling - semi-employed - radio (which requires commuters to really succeed)talk guy...

It is nearly proven that SUNSCREEN is far more hazardous to the environment than other oily substances... thus I propose that we stop protecting ourselves from the sun and then the increase in skin cancer fatalities will decrease the total population of the earth with a special mortality concentration increase in areas like Florida, California and Hawaii...

Thus people will quit taking vacations in big fossil fuel consuming vehicles and reduce greenhouse gas emmissions and plus the price of property will decrease in warmer climates due to decreased demand on the market and ...

I believe my plan is much more far reaching than yours....

If only I was a big enough celebrity to have my ideas be ignored as much as yours are... :)

[Steve Brown]

"None value"
Nice....I detect yet another Krusty Tap reference, do I not?

[Nathan Bubna]

I like this; it makes me think of other things people don't usually suggest abolishing in save-the-earth conversations. Like big movie theaters, particularly the suburban ones surrounded by massive parking lots. Or theme parks, how much energy do we burn running those and transporting people to them from all over the world. In fact, i'm just realizing it's pretty easy to spot things we should abolish to save the world, just compare the size of the structures to the size of the parking available.

Big parking lots mean lots of people driving a long way, often to consume goods which were driven a long way to get there, while using lots of energy to light and run both the lots and the buildings. Walmart, big theater chains, strip malls, schools, theme parks, etc.

Que interesante.

[Nathan Bubna]

Oh, forgot to mention large, centralized government buildings! Talk about entrenched special interests and waste! Downsize DC! Long live city and county governments!

http://downsizedc.org

[Ben, who hopes to not even think about school for the next three months.]

As a budding linguist, I absolutely love (seriously) when 'none' is used as an adjective. I first saw it the other day when these girls were have an all-girls party and they had a sign up that read 'None Boys'. And now I come here to see you use it, twice!

[From Brant: It's also a nod to Spinal Tap. Tap references are plentiful here, if usually buried.]

[Mickey]

I am not sure about it, but I bet these guys would agree. Some creative work by some homeschoolers :

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080509/od_nm/skull1_dc;_ylt=AmVToy1BKJaMWdJ3fk6zFRsDW7oF