paper trail tears

Our society-wide obliviousness to paper waste continues to startle me.

I scheduled a meeting with my academic advisor the other day. I went in to discuss with him the possibility of pursuing a double-major in business and environmental science. When he asked what I wanted to do with these, I explained that I had recently recognized a serious passion for environmental issues and wanted to develop a career in a sustainable-resources promotion business or go into sustainable urban development.

He listened carefully and then showed me how to navigate the university's website to get the information I needed for this endeavor, for which I was all too grateful. I was completely shocked, though, when he printed out an entire page of information simply to give me the URL listed at the bottom. This continued on for about a dozen other miscellaneous pages, the information of which I could have easily written down on one piece of paper. I was so startled by the ease at which he was doing this (for a student who had only moments ago expressed growing passion and concern for this very sort of society-wide habit) that I couldn't even find the words to stop him.

A half hour later, I left graciously but stunned.