Eco-warriors
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has once again dismissed climate change, but his military advisers have long taken a more pragmatic view. At the Pentagon, strategists are planning for conflicts ignited by our warming world. Yet prevention is better than cure, thinks Feedback, and we wonder if the armed forces are playing their part in the greatest battle of all: mitigating climate change. We brainstormed some ways the men and women in olive drab might be more green.
The armoured divisions could deliver a pre-emptive strike against climate change by converting those gas-guzzling tanks to eco-friendly hybrid models. The whirr of quiet electric motors will be perfect for sneak attacks.
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Whoa there, Maverick! How many air miles have you clocked up in that fighter jet? There are many more environmentally friendly forms of transport available. Hop on a bicycle and you can be our wingman any time.
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Putting yourself on the no-fly list also frees up space on aircraft carriers. The Gerald R. Ford has two-and-a-half hectares of flight deck that could easily be converted into allotments. An army marches on its stomach, after all, and soon your mariners will be swimming in fresh produce.
Speaking of the sea: microplastic pollution is a scourge on our oceans, yet what are torpedoes filled with? Plastic explosive!
Surely the sharp minds at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency can stop sea life becoming collateral damage by devising biodegradable munitions?
Join the army and see the world, they say. But all those boots on the ground come with a hefty carbon footprint. An easy way to reduce mileage is to organise your foreign adventures much closer to home.
Better yet, make your next invasion a stay-vasion, and search for WMDs in say, Connecticut. With state slogans like 鈥淪till revolutionary鈥� and 鈥淔ull of surprises鈥�, commanders have a civic duty to investigate further.
Four footed and legless
SPEAKING of innovation: councillors in Omaha, Nebraska, have granted a liquor licence to a doggy daycare centre. When it opens, Barks N Brews will be the first of its kind, a meeting place for friends and man鈥檚 best friend alike to drink and socialise.
Apart from the sheer folly of not naming this daycare centre The Hair of the Dog, The Boozehound or the Hooch and Pooch, Feedback is supportive of the move. After all, dogs鈥� feline counterparts have pivoted into the coffee business, with cat caf茅s offering everything a regular caf茅 has, but less hygiene.
What other animal-populated businesses does the future hold? Cannabis depositories staffed by red-eyed hamsters? A shopping mall filled with pumas would certainly do away with the plodding Saturday crowds, turning the shopping run into a thrilling sprint-or-perish. And waiting rooms filled with venomous snakes could dissuade the worried well from crowding out clinics.
Feedback feels there is no business that cannot be improved by the addition of animals, and we encourage the world to prove us wrong.
Facing the consequences
AS THE celebrated head of billion-dollar air-conditioning manufacturer Gree Electric, Dong Mingzhu is a familiar face in China. Yet she was understandably aggrieved by her latest billboard appearance on a large electronic screen in the port city of Ningbo, which is used to shame those caught jaywalking. As in many Chinese cities, a face-recognition system automatically identifies culprits dashing across the street and displays their name and mugshot.
Yet questions were soon raised: would one of China鈥檚 most successful businesswomen be traversing the smoggy streets on foot? Red-faced officers quickly admitted that the AI traffic warden had picked out her face from an advert on the side of a bus.
They promised that a future upgrade to the system would prevent such occurrences, presumably leaving the flesh-and-blood Mingzhu to jaywalk with impunity.
Pyramid scheme
YOU may be a Scouser born and bred, but what about afterwards? Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond, who found fame as avant-garde pop act KLF, and infamy as the anti-capitalists who set fire to 拢1 million in cash, are offering Liverpudlians the chance to give back to their city in a highly personal way, by having their own ashes incorporated in a pyramid.
Through what they are calling 鈥淢uMufication鈥�, 23 grams of a person鈥檚 mortal, well-charred remains will be cast into a brick, and then used to build a pyramid in the Liverpool suburb of Toxteth.
The People鈥檚 Pyramid will be made of 34,592 people鈥� er, bricks, and, once complete, will stand over 7 metres high. It turns out you can put a price on immortality: the cost of reserving your spot in the sepulchral sculpture is a mere 拢99.99.
Fittingly launched on Black Friday (the holiest day in the retail calendar, for those paying attention), Toxteth residents over 80 years of age could sign up at Toxteth town hall for a mere 拢9.99, with free tea and mince pies made available.
Feedback: How can we make the men in green more, er, green?
Mitigating climate change is the greatest battle of our time, so isn鈥檛 it time to call in the troops? Plus: day care centre gets alcohol licence, a deathly pyramid scheme in Liverpool, and more
Stool Hardness And Transit, and Found And Retrieved Time: two units coined by researchers who swallowed Lego bricks to find out how long it took to excrete them
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