Health & Fitness
It's a Transit Oriented Christmas
As we all know greenhouse gas emissions from livestock are higher than all transportation combined - so now in moves to be more sustainable Santa has had to switch from his lightning quick reindeer powered sleigh to public transit.
In moves to reduce carbon emissions, and under pressure from sustainability groups, Santa has been forced to abandon his lightning-fast sleigh. As we all know emissions from livestock are higher than all transportation combined (see Wikipedia entry) so Rudolph and his reindeer friends have been forced to go.
Santa will now be taking transit to conduct all of his deliveries in a move to reduce his excessively large emissions footprint. With the substantial amount of travel that he performs - delivering to every address once a year using a livestock powered vehicle - sustainability groups and transit advocates successfully won a lawsuit requiring Santa to switch to alternate green transportation methods such as transit. Consideration of emissions of alternative transportation methods, even though lower in emissions than transit, was not allowed under California Senate Bill 375 - as this bill focuses emissions reductions exclusively on cars and light trucks.
Santa's New Delivery Schedule
Due to connection times, weather delays and limited night bus and train schedules this now means that the following changes are effective immediately, starting Christmas 2013:
- package deliveries to children will now occur once every 100 years. Regretfully this means four out of five children will not experience a single gift delivery at Christmas. Parents have been instructed to explain to their children that this is for the greater good to save the planet, and to reminisce with their memories of Christmases past.
- Darrell Steinberg, leader of the California State Senate has succeeded in passing new legislation in Senate Bill 666 whereupon children living in high density housing near transit will still receive annual deliveries. He expressed that this is to help the building industry and denied his legislation having any relationship with his substantial campaign donations from builders, building unions and train manufacturers.
- Santa will now only deliver extremely lightweight and small presents as he cannot carry his sack in his sleigh's capacious trunk. He can only carry a small and light load on transit.
Christmas Present Blacklist
All gift lists will now be monitored and any gifts that encourage or induce emissions have now been blacklisted. Known blacklisted items include:
- Any Lego model depicting a single family home
- Racing cars or models of cars that achieve under 50mpg (children may pick between the Prius, Civic and Focus hybrid)
- all livestock including dogs, cats, hamsters and especially ponies
- model or toy space rockets and aircraft
- any video game, DVD or Blu-Ray disc movie glorifying or even depicting a car, spacecraft or aircraft using a propulsion system known to emit carbon
- any electrical device that may utilize electricity from a non-renewable power source such as coal
- any device using batteries which are not renewable and bad for the environment
A list of acceptable presents is being prepared to help children with appropriate gift selection. Any reports of the bankruptcy of Toys-R-Us, FAO Schwarz and Walmart are alarmist and entirely premature.
Elven Population Moved to TOD Housing North of Greenland
Due to the greatly reduced delivery abilities 98% of north pole Elves have been given pink slips. Their services to wrap many numerous, large gifts are no longer needed. This population will be moved into an extensive series of large apartment complexes just north of Greenland to be served exclusively by transit. Some population attrition is anticipated due to excessive wait times for buses in sub-zero temperatures causing rapid onset of hypothermia.
Crack Sustainability Team to Educate Children
Highly trained sustainability educators from a newly formed team will explain the new policy to children. The team will be called "Green Regulations are Important for the New Chistmas Holiday". A committee is working hard on an acronym for the new group and a press conference announcement is expected shortly.
New Assembly Formed to Coordinate Efforts
A newly formed association of governments has been formed to coordinate the new system. This new authority will be paid for by a new "Christmas tax" imposed as a 10% increment in sales tax on all gift related items purchased between November and December. This group has scheduled over 250 public outreach meetings to collect public input on the new Christmas delivery system. The schedule of these meetings has been delivered in advance to sustainability groups who have been contracted to publicize these meetings. Adults over 18 will be able to attend outreach meetings for liability reasons to protect minors. Attendance and feedback sent by minors who are under 18 years of age are not accepted.
The cooperation of you and your children in this important matter is appreciated. We have to save the planet for our children!
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