Carbon Footprint

I live on a quiet street. The traf­fic might be three cars a day. Out­side of my win­dow now though, a huge white truck has just arrived. It must be worth as least $150,000. Three hefty men climb down from the cab. One folds his arm and watches. One picks up a rake from the back of the truck, and one picks up a scoop. I’m a bit mys­ti­fied because this is the kind of street that has nicely trimmed lawns, def­i­nitely a short-back-and-sides street where peo­ple tidily roll out their coun­cil bin once a week and dust their let­ter boxes. The swat team in their flu­o­res­cent jack­ets has seen some­thing though that eluded my care­less gaze. In the gut­ter is a small col­lec­tion of leaves. Heck, there must be twenty leaves. So the man with the rake swats the leaves into the scoop man’s scoop, and the scoop man solemnly tips the leaves into the back of the truck. The super­vi­sor unfolds his arms and they climb back into their mon­ster truck. The machin­ery rum­bles off with an enor­mous roar, enough power to gen­er­ate elec­tric­ity for a small town.

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