Earth Day 2011 is Friday! I hope you're celebrating with green beer and leafy shamrocks. Wait. No. Wrong holiday. Even so, there are still fun ways to celebrate, like I don't know, not showering to save water, and sleeping in to save electricity use. I'll be having a self-dyed green beer and will sit in the sunshine for a while all to do my part to save Mother Earth.
Earth Day now spans over 125 nations and, rightly so, it gets a lot of attention. Many bills have been passed, like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, in the day's honor, and awareness has been raised for the planet's growing environmental movement. This year, our government is celebrating in an interesting, and perhaps entirely contradictory and, frankly, stupid way. The guys in Congress have done it again!
Ever heard of the United States Postal Service? Yeah, rings a little bell for me, too. I think there were some killings there when people went "postal." But I haven't really used it that much. A "thank-you note" here and there, and maybe a birthday party invitation once or twice in the '80s, but the USPS and I never really got a chance to be close.
The private UPS and, oh, I don't know, email have sort of taken hold of the send and/or ship industry. But that won't stop the government mail guys from getting in on the Earth Day action. Guys! They've launched the Go Green Stamp collection!
It's a series of 16 stamps designed by San Francisco artist Eli Noyes, and each stamp features a different illustration about how to lead a greener life. "Turn off the lights" and "use public transportation" are two of the themes ... but I'm starting to get a little confused.
One of the stamps should say, "Instead of mailing this paper letter and paying 44 cents, you should just send an email because that's way greener, and cheaper, and it's pretty much accepted for most occasions, including job interview thank-yous and party invitations."
I didn't catch that theme, though. It's kind of like when a jewelry company says they're going green -- uh, are you not extracting metal from the earth? The whole concept is flawed. Ah well, soon we'll tell tales of yesteryear when the government ran a postal service, and people once used pen and paper to send a letter.
What do you think of the stamps?
Photo via USPS.com
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Comments 10
Maybe sending an email is faster and greener, but do you have any idea how much revenue the USPS has lost in the past couple of years? They lost 8.5 billion in 2010 and 3.8 billion in 2009. They are cutting jobs left and right in order to cut costs. In fact, the USPS themselves fax and email stuff from post office to post office every single day.
My husband has been delivering mail for 10 years. We know what's going on behind closed doors. We've seen routes cut in half, paychecks cut in half, postal workers going to the hospital because they've been working too damn hard to do the jobs of 2 or 3 workers and can't catch a break.
I'm totally supportive of these green stamps. Maybe, just maybe, the USPS won't close out at such a loss this year.
I have a few people I try to keep in touch with who don't use computers because they are old or incarcerated or otherwise can't use e-mail and I personally like fancy stamps.
My Husband is a soldier and deployes a lot. Nothing feels nicer and makes me feel closser for a moment as a handwtritten letter. E-mails and phonecalls are nice but a traditional letter is so much more personal. I like the stamps.
I work online, I have about 10 emails that I use every day, for a multitude of reasons, however, I think handwriting (And I have horrible penmanship) is something that is to be treasured and all things that I was raised that requires handwriting is done through that way. There are still people who don't have a computer, or do not know how to check their email, likewise, I also use the postal service to mail out various tangible gifts to people throughout the world, and or goods.
Some things can't be sent by e-mail.
I think that people who are to lazy to sit down and right a letter versus sending a text message is going to be singing a different tune when the post office goes under and millions of people lose their jobs.
I like the stamps!