We’re Offsetting Our Coal-Burning Factory Emissions By Watering Your Mom’s Gardenias For A Weekend
Hi. I’m Larbo Dax, CEO of Coal-Source Plaztix, and climate change is happening — I’m brave enough to admit that.
We’ve all felt it: You’re out on the back nine hitting a few rounds when all of a sudden you smell something burning, and at first you think you’re finally having that stroke your doctor keeps warning you about, but then you see there’s a wildfire ripping towards the course and you’re forced to leave the green without finishing your last Stella. Then, not even a month later, the green’s all washed out because of torrential rains and you have to spend two consecutive weekends at home with the wife and kids. Frightening stuff.
So, what do we do? Well, I’ll tell you what we don’t do: we don’t panic and stop burning coal to manufacture single-use plastics. Now, that may sound counterintuitive, but think about it: sure, it doesn’t make sense, but our logo is green now. And that’s not all! To all the AOCs and Gretel Thunbergs out there, campaigning for a safe and just future, we see you, we hear you, and we say: as of today, Coal-Source Plaztix will be committing to neutralizing the emissions of our coal-fired plastic factory by watering your mom’s gardenias for one entire weekend.
Now, while it’s true that our smokestacks spew out eight tons of C02 every hour, it’s also true that your mother’s backyard is quite possibly one of the most effective carbon sinks in the Midwest. It’s lush. It’s truly lush. And all it takes is a bit of simple math to realize that for every three public mentions of the words “carbon sink,” Coal-Source buys itself roughly one month of scrutiny-free operations. Did we mention that our logo is a sequoia tree now? Carbon sink.
Your mother’s backyard is also a biodiversity hotspot, what with its tomatoes, dirt, and that one robin she always sends me photos of. We’re going through a mass extinction event, folks. Billions and billions of bumblebees are being eradicated from the face of the earth every single minute, so it’s important to protect what little we have left. That’s just a little taste of the speech I’ll be giving at the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity, which I will most certainly be attending — along with my most aggressively charming plastic lobbyists — and where I will be telling everybody about Coal-Source Plaztix’s many, many offset projects, of which watering your mom’s gardenias for a weekend is our only one.
At this point, you might be wondering how I know your mother. Well, I’ve known her for a very, very long time, and in more ways than one, if you catch my drift. And you know what? She needs a break. She’s been busting her sweet ass for your ungrateful sake for far too long. So I’ve taken the liberty of booking her a hotel for the weekend and sending Carlos, our gardener slash PR consultant, to water and photograph the shit out of those gardenias, which will look just gorgeous on the front page of our website.
But I digress. The fact is, we need transformative, systemic change. And by that I don’t mean that we should transform the way our system is structured — I simply mean that we must transform Coal-Source Plaztix from an operation that only spews carbon into the atmosphere into an operation that spews carbon into the air while also taking a watering can to darling Margaret’s gardenias with sweet abandon for a day or two. Our in-house research team has categorically proven that they cancel each other out.
The time has come, folks. We have before us an unprecedented opportunity for intersystemical justice youth-led mega transformation, and Coal-Source Plaztix is committed to being an ally. To this end, we’re pleased to announce that watering Maggie’s bush is no longer our sole offset project: for our second decarbonization venture, we’ll be adding the words “net-zero by 2050” to our home page, right under the gardenia banner. Also, we’re called Greensource Bioplaztix now, and yes, I screwed your mom.
