What would we do without The Onion?  Or, for that matter, Alex?

By using mass transit or riding my bike whenever possible, I may not be able to influence greenhouse-gas emissions standards or reduce mass global addiction to fossil fuels one iota. Nor, by slavishly collecting every banana peel or coffee ground to make my own rich garden compost, will I alter our consumer culture’s pathological tendency to devour everything it encounters at an exponentially advancing rate. Restricting my household energy use to non-peak hours does not make me capable of reversing temperature changes in the gulf stream that even now have begun to throw the world’s climate out of equilibrium. The question, however, is not “What can’t I do?” but rather, “What can I do?” The answer: next to nothing.

It’s funny because it hurts the truth.