Heartbeats and ending global warming

I read somewhere, some time ago, that everybody is born with a certain number of heartbeats, and when you reach your number – Boom. Game over, lights out, Do svidaniya, so long it’s been good to know you.

Applying that idea, I decided: Exercise causes an increase in heartbeat; that is, the more you exercise, the more heartbeats you use up. If I get X number from my Day One until my Day Last, why use any I don’t have to? I’ve used a great many in stressful situations already – being shot at, shooting back, running, writing newspaper stories at deadline, carrying a 75-pound jack hammer and then using it … the usual things.

Why waste any?

Somewhere in that, maybe this fits:

“The U.S. should adapt to a European model in the workplace in order to halt global warming, a study says.

“By working less hours per week and take longer vacations the American people could reduce carbon emissions, think tank Center for Economic Policy and Research claim.

“If the ‘Western European’ working model was to be adopted in the U.S., it could reduce up to 50 per cent of the addressable global temperature rise expected by 2100.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2273887/How-stop-global-warming--work-Liberal-think-tank-claims-American-workers-European.html

Makes sense, doesn’t it? If we don’t drive as much, if we don’t air condition or heat offices as much, if don’t breathe as much … That last one would be the real cure, the one RadicalEnvirowhackos want … “Die human, die!” (Except for True Greens, of course. After all, what’s the use in being a prophet if you don’t live long enough to see your prophecies come to pass?)

A couple of things: First, never trust “a study says.” Studies are like numbers – In the right hands they can sit up, beg, roll over and change a diaper. Second, the study was by the Center for Economic Policy and Research. Just search its founders, Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot.