Editor's note: Green Options is happy to welcome Wendy Laird, winner of our "The Lighter Side of Green" contest, to the blog.

Lately everyone who isn’t Republican has been yammering on about “Carbon Neutrality,” as if that’s a goal we should all be striving for. Puh-leez. Carbon neutrality will do nothing to save our delicate ecoglobe. If we all went carbon-neutral right now, things would just stay the way they are: The polar bears would still be doing the breast stroke, the weather would still be wreaking havoc, and George Bush would still be president.

As usual, I take this problem more seriously than everyone else. I believe I mentioned in my last column (and if you’d been reading carefully I wouldn’t have to repeat myself, which takes carbon) that I am carbon-negative. Well I am. And I’ll bet you’re not.

You’re sitting there at your computer and I’ll bet your power-save settings are not optimized. If they were, you wouldn’t be able to see this post because your screen would be black. And you call yourself an environmentalist. My screen is black. In fact, since I don’t use electricity for something as frivolous as light, I’m sitting here in the pitch dark, so it’s a good thing I am an expwrt typlst.

A lot of so-called environmentalists talk about getting “off the grid.” This is misguided at best. If I was off the grid, I couldn’t be carbon-negative, and the power company would never know how hard I am working. My photovoltaic cells and 50-foot wind turbine cause my electric meter’s dials to fly backwards. This also saves paper, as I don’t have to send any more self-congratulatory letters to the power company.

Though none of you so-called earth-lovers ever talk about it, personal outlook has a very real impact on carbon expenditure. I’ve done extensive ecovibe research, and have concluded that only mild unhappiness is carbon-negative. That’s why my mood ring is consistently black, and why I strive to maintain a state between melancholy and fully disgruntled.

So the next time you surf to the Terra Pass site to buy carbon offsets in a weak attempt at saving our habitorb, don’t be so happy about it, unless you plan to offset your happiness, too. Because joy and its thoughtless expression blows carbon like a Shanghai tour bus.