Leapin’ lords

Not only would presenting your true love with gifts from the carol The Twelve Days of Christmas cost you nearly $20,000, but Dale Marshall, climate change analyst for the Vancouver-based David Suzuki Foundation, speculates that it would come with an environmental price tag of 54.4 tonnes of greenhouse emissions (average annual output of emissions per person: 5 tonnes).

Says Senator Tommy Banks, there are serious underlying issues of over-consumption and the environmental impact of manufacturing, transporting and distributing the gifts and their packaging.

A fun twist on some of this gifts would be to donate to a local animal shelter instead of bestowing turtledoves, French hens, calling birds, geese a-laying, or swans a-swimming. Support local theatres… get tickets to a play with some lords, ladies, pipers and maids. Or consider planting a (pear) tree.