Recently we talked about how composting your dead child can help bring new life to your garden and how to cut back on your energy consumption by using the sun to charge a car battery then attaching jumper cables directly to your eyes to power yourself. But today, we have something simple and fun in mind.

Ok ok, we’ve all heard about the BP oil spill and how it’s ruining an entire ocean, devastating the economies of every shore-bound state, and possibly setting off a round of mass extinctions not seen since the dinosaurs died off because God was mad. But what’s the UP side?

As people who care about Spaceship Planet Earth, sometimes we can forget to stay upbeat and positive in the face of the overwhelming unregulated corporate dominance which shows its strength by continually inserting its money-phallus into the extremely fragile nature vagina that is our ecosystem. So next time a species disappears for ever or a hurricane with climate change-induced Category Five ferocity drowns a historic city or whatever…just remember that it’s not the end of the world. It’s only one small step toward that end of the world.

Still wondering how you can turn that eco-frown upside down? Well that’s why Drink At Work is here…because you are stupid.

MAKE A GAME OF IT

Not every bottom-up food chain killing event in the Gulf Stream has to be a sad occasion, like BP’s murder of the entire Gulf of Mexico has been. Next time there’s an oil spill turn it into a chance to teach your kids some fun lessons. Here’s a page from the new picture-finding book “WHERE’S BP?” Can you find BP? I bet you can’t. Keep looking.

DISCOVER NEW FOODS TO EAT

So 90% of the edible life in the ocean has been over farmed or killed, a fact that is slowly strangling the rest of the food chain until there are dwindling few edibles left on earth…so you can either cry about it or you can learn to expand your palate! What do trees taste like? Ever thought of that? Maybe stop hugging them and start pouring Sylvia’s hot sauce on them. Plus, it’s probably the only food you can cook with itself. And one day, if you work at it, maybe you won’t even need to eat the trees. Maybe fire itself can become a delectable entree. Flambées have been a staple of French cuisine for millions of years. If the French can eat fire, so can us!

GET BACK TO YOUR ROOTS

As civilization careens into its final act thanks to conservative ideology and its insistence that the wealthy earned their right to watch the world burn, we’ll all get a chance to see what life was like before existence-enhancing discoveries like the light bulb, not-raping, and agriculture came about. Think of it as a field trip to the past… 6,000 years in the past, you know, when a bearded God magically created the universe so that it would appear through every mechanism of cause and effect that the universe was billions of years old already. What a joker! The point is, you know that backpacking trip you wanted to take across Europe? Well, consider it on…and forever. But here and not in Europe. And there won’t be any charming wine shops or pubs or cheese tastings because everyone will be dead or traveling in packs, hunting rubes like you during the day and hiding in septic tanks at night to avoid feral dogs and mutant biker gangs. You might want to bring along a copy of THE ROAD for some light reading. (Spoiler alert: It’s sad!)

That should just about do it. So remember, get out there and live life like no one is dancing and dance…like no one has legs. Now go.