Every morning when I go to open my laptop my husband has not hidden the fact that he was there the night before. He goes to sleep two hours after me and often spends the time surfing the web. What I am confronted with first thing in the morning - even before breakfast, even before coffee, even before orange juice - is not a porno site, not a TED talk, not the credits of the movie he had watched but complicated graphs accompanied by impossible to understand articles usually on some kind of damage that is being done to the planet. This morning’s was about how much C02 is released by one gallon of gasoline. Turns out I don’t have to see the info on my computer . He will tell me as soon as I walk out of the bedroom. He will tell it to me in passionate tones as if he were describing the tsunami that hit japan .
He says: “You will not believe this, Nance, one gallon of gas weighs 6.5 pounds and that converts into twenty pounds of CO2."
I say , " Do you want pancakes?"
He says, “I have to check that again. That cant be right. One gallon of gas… twenty pounds of CO2????!!!!!I cant believe this. How do you go from 6.5 pounds of liquid gasoline to twenty pounds of CO2 greenhouse gas??"
This must be a rhetorical question because he cant possibly think I could remotely know the answer. He continues on undaunted.
"The gasoline is a hydro carbon. There’s a multiplying effect. That’s what it is. So when the gas burns and combines with oxygen…
"Or an omelet", I interrupt.
I try to be as shocked and disturbed by the facts as he is. It’s not as if I’m countering with my own thrilling purchase of a pair of Minolos on Ebay. I’m not entirely a light weight. But I don’t eat sleep and dream the planet’s future .
The fact is, if we as a species are to survive, we need more of him and less of me. He’s hyper conscious of waste. He monitors people when they wash dishes and he shows them how to not let the water escape down the hole. He uses a small towel after he showers (which isn’t that often by the way) (not because he isn’t impeccable its because he says Americans shower too much) because washing a big towel takes too much energy. Meanwhile I’m wrapping myself in a bath sheet the size of Texas. We’re just different. Its not like i want him to be watching porno but the problem is he almost can't enjoy himself because he worries so much because he knows too much.
We are going on our first vacation in a long while. Unfortunately I made the airline reservations the day after he discovered the thing about gas and CO2. When I tell him the dates and the times and the rest of the details about our trip to Telum he doesn’t say, Oh it will be so nice to relax on white sand and swim in aqua water. He says: can you imagine how much CO 2 gets released by planes??
Maybe I do want him to visit a few harmless porno sites.
