I was on vacation last week and missed a bunch of stuff. And in keeping with a New Year’s resolution to write a blog post a day, here’s my thoughts on last week’s mail center protest.
I wonder if any of the liberals protesting for maintaining a Tucson postal center in the name of jobs are the same liberals wailing about global warming?
Snail Mail is quickly becoming an anachronism. Moreover, it’s an environmental nightmare. More than 215,000 postal vehicles drive more than 1.2 billion miles a year.
Billions of pounds of mailed paper is made from tree pulp. That’s about 68 million trees a year for the U.S. alone, according to the American Forest and Paper Association.
Most snail mail can be electronic these days, it’s just old people resistant to change who insist on it. And the postal worker’s union.
Poor people without computers need only get their snail mail bills and personal communication once a week; every day delivery is unnecessary. Package delivery also can be weekly or handled by private industry, UPS, FedEx and the like.
Last week’s protest had more to do with postal worker’s union members rousing the liberal rabble to save their jobs than some kind of broad-based community outcry to keep a Tucson frank on Tucson’s paper mail.
The digital age is changing all paper communication, newspapers, magazines, books, catalogs and even mail. It’s better for everyone if the USPS consolidates, condenses and diversifies its sprawling quasi-governmental monopoly.
So to my liberal friends, help save the planet – use email.