14 DAY TRIAL // A new report pieced together by the Center for Economic Policy and Research maintains that, all things considered, climate change can efficiently be dealt with if people agree to spend less time working and more time playing.
More precisely, it looks like the working model people all around the world must embrace in order to safeguard the planet is the European one, which allegedly promotes rather lengthy holidays, lots of time for leisure activities and reasonable work hours.
On the other hand, what people must learn to stay away from is the American model, whose supposed core principles are long hours and little (if any, for that matter) vacation time.
Apparently, should human society agree to spend less time working and more time playing, the amounts of harmful greenhouse gas emissions released into the environment on a regular basis could be reduced by roughly 50% as early as the year 2100.
As the researchers behind this study explain, “It [the report] finds that such a change in work hours [reducing work hours over the rest of the century by an annual average of 0.5 percent] would eliminate about one-quarter to one-half of the global warming that is not already locked in (i.e. warming that would be caused by 1990 levels of greenhouse gas concentrations already in the atmosphere).”
This is because, as reported on numerous occasions, factories and office buildings are responsible for burning up significant amounts of energy in order to keep up and running. Therefore, they can be argued to have a major ecological footprint.
Still, the report fails to take into consideration the fact that, should people choose to spend their newly gained and supposedly green-oriented free time playing computer games or driving around to various destinations, no significant progress would be made in terms of slashing greenhouse gas emissions.
Needless to say, this is one piece of news almost everybody might wish to present to their bosses.