How to fight climate change with idleness

last updated 8 January 2015

United Kingdom

Jim White

The global warming zealots have it all wrong, said Jim White in London’s Daily Telegraph. They may be divided on what, exactly, we should do to stop climate change, but they are united around one maxim: "Doing nothing is not an option." Yet doing nothing is, in fact, the best thing we could do. As The Idler magazine has pointed out in its "green" issue, it is our culture of busyness that makes us gobble up fossil fuels and spew out greenhouse gases at such disastrous rates. "If we keep on at this rate, the world will combust, spun into an early grave by the ant-like dashing of its human inhabitants." If, by contrast, we simply stop doing things, we’ll use very little fuel. Instead of "jetting off on holiday," spend your vacation taking walks in the park. When it comes to Christmas, don’t busy yourself buying junk that nobody needs "that has to be shipped in from China on a giant boat; buy nothing at all." Stop watching television. Read a book instead, or write a poem. "It makes sense: Do nothing and save the planet."