I honestly wish environmentalists would think before speaking
Who the heck even buys the “traditional” Christmas gifts as detailed in the song The Twelve Days of Christmas? And why should we even care that apparently said twelve gifts are pricy and (apparently) environmentally unfriendly?
If, on the 12th day of Christmas, your true love wants to indulge you in poultry and performers, consider that gathering the gifts from the famous song will not only cost you $19,261.03, but also comes with a hefty environmental price tag of 54.4 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
Partridges and pear trees don’t come cheap.
“That’s quite an extravagant Christmas, when the average person in Canada is responsible for five tonnes of emissions per year,” said Dale Marshall, climate change analyst for the David Suzuki Foundation.
You damn average bastards! You’re killing Mother Earth!
To say nothing of the hundreds of tonnes of emissions that Mr. Suzuki racked up this year with all the flights he’s likely taken, not to mention his cross-country tour on a diesel-burning bus. But unlike you, damnable polluting peasants, he’s campaining for the sake of the Earth, so he gets a pass.
The best part of the article is that the stupidity continues for another few paragraphs:
Higher gold prices and increased minimum wages have driven up the monetary cost of the song’s gifts by 3.1 per cent for 2007, according to Pittsburgh-based PNC Wealth Management, which has done the tongue-in-cheek economic analysis for 23 years.
CanWest News Services has calculated, using various carbon-emission calculators, the environmental cost of such holiday generosity as 10 Lords-a-leaping, five gold rings, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.
“I certainly don’t want to come off as a Scrooge during the Christmas season, but it is true that Christmas has become an icon of our over-consumptive society,” Marshall said.
Too late, Mr. Marshall, too late. Scrooge thou seemest!
I would think it would cost a lot more than $19,000 and chance to get ten lords — and here I’m thinking of, you know, sitting members of the House of Lords or something…not some piddly senator — to come to one’s doorstep on Christmas morning to dance a little jig. I’m also going to purge that mental image now.
In the CanWest News Service scenario, True Love presents the gifts to his beloved in Winnipeg, roughly the centre of Canada. Since the gift giver is patriotic and politically correct, he has gathered gifts from each province and territory, with the exception of three French hens that hail from St. Pierre-et-Miquelon but travel through St. John’s, N.L., to Winnipeg. If True Love wishes to purchase carbon offsets, his total will increase by a further $1,237.86.
*barf*
Okay, seriously…did everyone here someow miss that The Twelve Days of Christmas is thought to be Christian allegory from the ages of religious wars in England, designed to clandestinely teach basic tenets of the faith to small children in a way that the authorities wouldn’t pick up on? No culture — English, North American, whatever — has ever interpreted the Twelve Days as an actual list of gifts or gift presentation scheme. Plum pudding is, I think, perhaps the most lasting legacy from the history of this song and the timeframe it represents.
Show me five Canadians who have ever purchased the gift list from The Twelve Days of Christmas and I’ll retract the above, but until such time…seriously, these people need to give their heads a shake. It’s a song…just a fun little ditty to sing at Christmastime that may possibly carry within it some clandestine Christian allegory. For those kids lucky enough to have parents who know what quality television is (was), it’s something they can sing along with Kermit and the gang (note to self: find that CD).
The last thing it is is a celebration of material excess. You know, it’s bad enough that at times of year significant to Christians, we have to put up with the usual barrage of Scrooges discussing the merits of atheistic Sunday schools, or the near-impossibility of the Immaculate Conception, or the art shows that “ask questions” about religion by depecting Christ as…whatever ridiculous thing is in vogue this year. That’s all expected.
But c’mon…surely David Marshall and his ilk have better things to do than to tread on a bit of lyrical fun by tallying up potential carbon emissions resulting from someone actually attempting to buy a list of nonsensical gifts for a loved one?
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