Four (or Five!) Reasons Why

….the Yellow Pages Are an Anachronism

1. As the Internet increasingly becomes the information, entertainment and communications tool, it’s so much quicker and easier to look up something online as opposed to pulling out the Yellow Pages and then sifting through hundreds of pages of teeny, tiny print to find the service you want.

2. Getting a five-pound paper tomb dropped on your doorstep every year just seems strange at a time when being “green” and being good to Mother Earth are all the rage. How many trees do you think they chop down, for example, to deliver the Yellow Pages to a million households in a city such as Toronto? If there’s a silver lining, it’s that many Yellow Pages are hopefully thrown into blue boxes so they can be recycled.

3. Since it’s published once a year, the Yellow Pages can become dated fairly quickly. And there’s no way to use the Yellow Pages to determine if the companies listed in it are legitimate or come highly recommended. With the Internet, however, you can do a few quick searches to get more information. There’s also personal recommendation services such as GigPark that connect you online people who can give you the “dirt” about who and what to use.

4. There’s got to be better and more fashionable things than the Yellow Pages to use as a door stop or a way to proper up your computer monitor or a booster seat for children.

For more thoughts on the Yellow Pages, check out Michael Garrity’s post on the One Degree blog.

Technorati Tags: environment, yellow pages

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1. The Environment. While it has been many moons since the effects of global warming have been brought to the international stage and most of the planet has seen Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” the reality is that most people won’t make changes to their global footprint until it starts to hit them in their wallet. Hybrid cars didn’t really start to become popular and there wasn’t a lot of thought around alternatives to car travel until gas prices started to soar. The movement to buy local, in-season fruits and vegetables only recently became highlighted by a surge in food prices (caused by higher input costs). Corporations only went “green” when they realized they could charge consumers a premium for it. And consumers only stop using plastic supermarket bags when they start getting charged for it. Sort of sad.

2. Charity. There is no doubt that giving to worthy causes is a good thing. A ton of people do it every year and many organizations survive on the generosity of others. We’ve already commented that there is a sense of charity fatigue developing. Another trend that seems to be emerging is the concept of charitable lotteries, where promises of million dollar give-aways and dream homes result in the sale of high priced tickets. It’s unfortunate that more people are inspired to give when there is the probability, albeit extremely low, that they’ll win something in return.

3. Health. Most people know what’s bad for you. Smoking. Eating too much. Not exercising. Stepping into oncoming traffic. Some of this is out of your control. Some of it is not. Although we know that we can make changes to improve our health, there is a strong tendency not to do so and rationalize every which way as an explanation. But some studies show that financial incentive brings beneficial effects, with attendance at exercise sessions improving when personal trainers and even more so when money is involved. While the long-term benefits are debatable, it’s clear that money talks and walks and runs.

4. Personal finance. When times are good, the money flows. Banks are more than eager to extend a helping hand when you need money for the extra square footage you didn’t know you had to have when looking for a house. Credit is practically free and card companies more than happy to increase your line of credit so you can spend more. Retirement savings? Pshaw! They’ll be plenty of time for that. Well, the bubble has burst yet again and somehow we’re all surprised when we see the carnage left behind. Yes, it’s lesson learned. But it’s also an awfully painful one that could have been avoided. Think objectively about your real needs and live within your means.

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…You Should Travel By Train

1. When you travel by air, you are essentially sitting in a tin can with nowhere to go. If you are lucky enough to get a window seat, you have the pleasure of looking at the colour blue for hours on end. Or black, if you’ve got an overnight flight. Driving? A little better, but you still don’t have much comfort, and the most you will often see are the backs of other cars and long stretches of highway. If you take the train, you actually get to see the landscape through which you are traveling and experience the wonders of territories only interrupted by train tracks.

2. The pleasure of train travel is highlighted by the ability to actually stand up and move around. There isn’t really a time someone is asking you to sit down and strap on a belt. Feel like taking a walk? Take a walk to the observation car! Feel like you need to pee? Go pee! Feel like you need a drink? Go to the bar car! Ah…the bar car. Find me another mode of transportation that has a bar car. Love it!

3. Security. Or lack there of. Of course we’re all concerned about safety and security when we travel. But trains, no matter where you are, are generally safe and, as such, security is fairly limited. You see your train. You have your ticket. You get on. It’s as simple as that. No need to arrive at the train station two hours before your flight, take your shoes off, empty your pockets, dump all liquids over three ounces in volume and subject yourself to the whims of security staff.

4. Many passenger trains these days have wireless Internet connections, so you can stay connected. While it’s not necessarily free, what you save on tickets versus flying more than makes up for paying for access. This doesn’t mean you have to connect to work either. Login to your favourite video streaming site and catch up on some TV or movies. Or if you have a Slingbox, or a friend who will be nice to you, tune in to live action or something on your DVR/PVR. (Do as one friend did during the last World Cup, who Slingboxed live games when taking a long train trip. In the bar car, no less. Brilliant!)

5. Train travel is actually better for the environment. While staying at home and doing nothing is the best things you can do for the environment, if you are going to travel, take the eco-way. According to a Train Chartering, a train uses up to 70% less energy and causes up to 85% less air pollution than a jet aircraft.

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….Recycling is Badly Flawed

1. Too much of the stuff that is diligently thrown in recycling boxes isn’t recycled. Many of the plastics (other than yogurt and margarine tubs, juice and laundry detergent containers) are sent to the dump as opposed to be recycled. And most, if not all, the glass isn’t recycled because the different colored-glass is mixed together, which makes it useless other than being used for doing things such as building roads.

2. There’s too much emphasis on recycling as opposed to re-use. Remember when you had to take your pop and milk bottles back to the store for a deposit. Most of those bottles were re-used as opposed to trucked to a sorting facility where an army of pickers has to go through it all.

3. There’s still way too much that isn’t recycled at all or that much. Styrofoam, for example, still goes right into the garbage even though manufacturers continue to pump out mountains of it every day. It should also be easier to recycle plastic. Think of all the plastic bags that could be used again if there they were collected as opposed to thrown into the garbage after a single use.

4. The energy, cost and time involved to recycle often outweighs the benefits. Think, for example, of all the fuel burned as trucks prowl around collecting household recycling. How efficient or environmentally friendly is that?

More: In this video, Penn and Teller talk about how recycling is “just plain bullshit”.

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….Commuting is Crazy

1. It takes so much time to commute back and forth to work. If you’re spending 30 minutes each way, that means commuting is consuming five hours/week, or 4% of the total time. According to the U.S. government, the average commute is 24.3 minutes/day or about 100 hours/year.

2. There are far too many bad drivers sharing the road who are changing lanes without signaling, stopping abruptly or speeding. Meanwhile, there are far too many in a hurry, which suggests they are chronically late or they love their jobs or they just enjoy driving like maniac during the busy morning commute.

3. There’s tremendous wear and tear on your car, especially if you drive in stop and go traffic. It’s estimated that the annual cost of operating a car is about $6,000 to $7,000 - probably more if you’re putting a lot of mileage on commuting.

4. It’s just bad for the environment as opposed to taking public transportation, walking, bicycling or simply living close to work.

More: According to Forbes, the worst commuting cities in the U.S. are Atlanta, Detroit and Miami. The best/easiest place to commute are Buffalo, Salt Lake City and Milwaukee.

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