You may wonder why the government finds the need to pursue such action since 1) U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have already topped out and have generally been on the
decline for the past 7 - 8 years or so (from technological advances
in natural gas extraction and a
slow economy more so than from already - enacted government regulations and subsidies); 2) greenhouse gases from the rest of the world (primarily driven by China) have been sky - rocketing over the same period, which lessens any impacts that our emissions reduction have); and 3) even
in their totality, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have a negligible influence on local / regional / global climate change (even a immediate and permanent cessation of all our carbon dioxide emissions would likely result
in a mitigation of global
temperature rise of less than one - quarter of a degree C by the end of the century).
It went something like this: hotel check -
in, locate room, locate wifi service, attempt connection to wifi, wonder why the connection is taking so long, try again, locate phone, call front desk, get told «the internet is broken for a while», decide to hot - spot the mobile phone because some emails really needed to be sent, go «la la la» about the roaming costs, locate iron, wonder why iron
temperature dial just spins around and around, swear as iron spews water instead of steam, find reading glasses, curse middle - aged need for reading glasses, realise iron
temperature dial is indecipherably
in Chinese, decide ironing front of shirt is good enough when wearing jacket, order room service lunch, start shower, realise can't read impossible small toiletry bottle labels, damply retrieve glasses from near iron and successfully avoid shampooing hair with body lotion, change (into slightly damp shirt), retrieve glasses from shower, start teleconference, eat lunch, remember to mute phone, meet colleague
in lobby at 1 pm, continue teleconference, get
in taxi, endure 75 stop - start minutes to a inconveniently located client, watch unread emails climb over 150, continue to ignore roaming costs, regret tuna panini lunch choice as taxi warmth, stop - start juddering, jet - lag, guilt about unread emails and traffic fumes combine
in a very unpleasant way, stumble out of over-warm taxi and almost catch hypothermia while trying to locate a very small client office
in a very large anonymous business park, almost hug client with relief when they appear to escort us the last 50 metres, surprisingly have very positive client meeting (i.e. didn't throw up
in the meeting), almost catch hypothermia again waiting for taxi which despite having two functioning GPS devices can't locate us on a main road, understand why as within 30 seconds we are almost rendered unconscious by the
in - car exhaust fumes, discover that the taxi ride back to the CBD is even
slower and more juddering at peak hour (and no, that was not a carbon monoxide induced hallucination), rescheduled the second client from 5 pm to 5.30, to 6 pm and finally 6.30 pm, killed time by drafting this guest blog (possibly carbon monoxide induced), watch unread emails climb higher, exit taxi and inhale relatively fresher air from kamikaze motor scooters, enter office and grumpily work with client until 9 pm,
decline client's gracious offer of expensive dinner, noting it is already midnight my time, observe client fail to correctly set office alarm and endure high decibel «warning, warning» sounds that are clearly designed to send security rushing... soon... any second now... develop new form of nausea and headache from piercing, screeching, sounds - like - a-wailing-baby-please-please-make-it-stop-alarm, note the client is relishing the extra (free) time with us and is still talking about work, admire the client's ability to focus under extreme aural pressure, decide the client may be a little too work focussed, realise that I probably am too given I have just finished work at 9 pm... but then remember the 200 unread emails
in my inbox and decide I can resolve that incongruency later (
in a quieter space), become sure that there are only two possibilities — there are no security staff or they are deaf — while my colleague frantically tries to call someone who knows what to do, conclude after three calls that no - one does, and then finally someone finally does and... it stops.