Member-only story
Saving the Earth like we mean it
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE
I got addicted to a computer game called Onnect. Before I deleted it in exasperation, I was playing it an hour a day or more. I loved this game, but not enough to pay for it, so I had to watch some really annoying ads over and over, until my ire at the ads overtopped my jonesing to play the game.
The one that sticks with me is very relevant to Earth Day, officially Wednesday, April 22 (although with the COVID-19 raging, we expect celebrations to be subdued, i.e., canceled). In this particularly infuriating ad, a mom and her little girl are doing their separate things in a beautiful upscale kitchen, when a glass of water gets knocked over. Mom reaches for a wad of paper towels. Daughter asks, “Mom, where do paper towels come from?” Mom replies, “Um-trees, I think.” Daughter can’t just leave it alone. “A lot of trees?” (Cut to Mom’s face, looking guilty and helpless.)
Yes, the somber narrator informs us, it IS a lot of trees. In fact, it’s “94,000 trees every day in the U.S. alone.” The ad then goes on to sell us bamboo-sourced paper products, which is not what infuriated me; I’m in favor of bamboo products. Not content with just saving trees, the new socially-responsible company is also PLANTING trees. A LOT of trees? Oh, my, yes. They have already planted 150,000 trees! And they’re going to try to plant a million…
