There was an interesting post a while ago about the havoc created by compressed air cans — you know, the ones you use to dust off your keyboard. Who knew that they were full of intensely powerful greenhouse gases?
I sure didn’t, but thanks to Eric de Place, now I do — so I make myself insufferable whenever I see someone with one, and I point out how easy it is to just turn the keyboard over and knock the crumbs out. But whenever I see a pallet of those cans sitting in Costco or one of the office stores, or in the office supply catalogs, I know being insufferable is just not enough.
So I emailed Costco when I first read the post and, to my surprise, have received no response. I forgot all about it until the latest Costco promo mag came to my house — with “Going Green” as the cover story (the feature story is about running a green business, with plugs for Costco’s environmental sensitivity).
Uh, yeah, except for the part about selling a totally unnecessary product with extraordinarily bad consequences — using these cans is the climate equivalent of giving kids a rock of crack when they ask for candy (a small convenience). It’s clear now that it’s going to be all we can do to keep the climate from spinning out of control, so I’m hoping that giving up totally unnecessary products seems easy and refreshingly simple. We just need to persuade the retailers not to sell the stuff.
That’s where you come in. Costco’s member service number is 1-800-774-2678. The email for David W. Fuller, editor of “The Costco Connection,” is dfuller@costco.com. Let them know that you want the company to do more than just write about being green — they need to stop stocking this climate crack.
