Global warming and our itchy printer fingers

Remember when typewriters ruled the world? I have recollections from early childhood of my grandmother sitting at a typewriter clicking away at the keys while my grandfather dictated. Thorough care was taken as she typed, because she knew fixing a little mistake was not as simple as using the backspace key that we all take for granted today. Her typewriter produced printed paper one page at a time, each sheet one of a kind, as unique and precious as the last.

I work in an industry where some of the old-timers tell me how drafting and map-making were achieved before computers. Again, meticulous care was taken because it was not easy to produce printed sheets of paper en masse. And with the advent of the early computers, it was still not straightforward, so they paid attention to detail before they printed. This was the true quintessence of the old adage, “measure twice, cut once”.

Then computer technology surged. Suddenly we were printing anything and everything that appeared on our screens. E-mails, documents, photos, spread sheets, charts, presentations, schedules, screenshots of the most inane trivia; nothing was kept purely digital. We had to have hardcopies piling up around us, even if we never looked at them again.

How many times have you printed something, only to curse when you forgot the tick box that prints in colour rather than black and white? Or mistakenly printed spread sheets in portrait layout rather than landscape? Or found a typo that you didn’t pick up earlier? So, the print job was inevitably done again, because all it took was a simple mouse click. We’ve all done it. And forests are dying because we didn’t take that one extra minute to perform the proverbial measure twice, cut once in the print settings menu.

So, before we voice scathing opinions and condemn others for global warming and the destruction of the environment, we all need to look at our own habits, and, among other things, re-train our itchy printer fingers. The catastrophic changes that are happening to our environment are not just the fault of mining and oil companies or the manufacturing giants or myriad other industries that belch out tonnes of pollution each year. They are just as much our fault, for those extra few seconds that we do not take to consider the environment before creating unwarranted waste, even in a simple office setting.

More and more I see, and applaud, an increasing number of e-mail signatures accommodating the phrase, "Please consider the environment before printing this email". It is a simple, but powerful message we all must heed. Only then do we have a right to complain about global warming.

Remember, if you absolutely must print, measure twice and cut once.

Sources

1.     Department of Environment and Conservation (NSW)

2.     International Institute for Environment and Development

3.     Price Waterhouse Cooper

4.     Xinhua News Agency

5.     North Carolina Office of Waste Reduction and Recycling

6.     American Forest and Paper Association