Facts:
1. Smoking kills 10,000 Quebecers every year.
2. du Maurier updated their packaging to help reduce its impact on the environment.
3. Our small steps make the difference.
My first impression:
So by smoking du Maurier cigarettes, I'll be making a difference? Right. Anyone who's stupid enough to think they're doing the planet a service consuming cancerous products wrapped in recycled paper deserves to, in my opinion, well, die.
Upon further consideration:
I wholeheartedly believe that the only way we can possibly "save the environment" is if billions of humans, well, die. Or aren't born in the first place. Whatever works.
Any family with five kids who claims to be making the "conscious choice" by filling the trunk of their flex fuel truck with reusable cloth bags filled with organic locally-produced family owned hand picked vegetables is completely delusional. You have five kids. The damage is done. You might as well buy a monster truck and crush baby seals for profit as far as the planet is concerned. Those five kids are going to use more planetary resources than you can ever offset by planting a tree or by installing low flow toilets. Sure, one of those five kids might turn out to be the climate Einstein and invent something that will improve the planet in ways we can only imagine, but let's get real here. They probably won't. Now, I've personally got nothing against anyone who was five children, hell, I've got nothing against anyone who has five hundred children. But please stop cranking out kids and then claim to be 'environmentally conscious'. In my school of though, the less humans on the planet, the better the established biological processes of nearly every other species will fare. Well, except maybe Pomeranians. Sans humans, the wolves will take care of 'em in hours. But I guess they're the same species. Which is pretty weird. So less people = happier and more successful all other life forms....which is kinda what people want to describe when they refer "the environment" though those rose colored glasses that leave out what makes up the real environment, or our surroundings. Forget virgin alpine peaks and pristine jungles. We're surrounded mostly by packed used car lots, porno theatres, nut and bolt factories, air freshener distributors, abandoned drive in theatres, and commission salespeople in airports who coax us into signing up for credit cards by offering us a free hat.
So back to the smokes. Here's my logic. I set out to ridicule this newspaper's obvious mixed-messaging greenwashed advertising cash grab. Then I though about it for a second. Less people = pretty much blanket improvement in all ecosystems of the planet. (Pocket dog variety excepted.) If a cigarette company wants people to believe smoking their product will help the rose-colored-glasses version of the "environment", then they're 100% right. You smoke, you die, you leave more room for other species. Everybody wins! Well, except for anyone who smokes these cigarettes. They just die. But consider these newly-dead smokers as an eco-sacrifice for the rest of us. If we're really serious about climate change, we need to make big changes in each of our lives. Smoking kills 10,000 Quebecers every year. This is a good start.
Kyle
PS
Important recession notes: Smoking and dying will create jobs in tobacco farming, manufacturing, trucking, convenience store retail, marketing, medical, mortuary services, funeral homes, cemetery maintenance, but will likely hurt companies that produce rose colored glasses.
