Are smoking bans an ecological disaster?
If I had the time, intelligence and patience I’d write a paper on this idea that struck me, alone in the lift, on my way from office to ground floor so I could “take the air” (and a little nicotine). To make these trips productive, I generally have some calls saved up and I use smoking breaks to make them, thus limiting downtime. Most other smokers don’t do that, or can’t, but that’s by-the-by, for the purposes of ecology, wasted working time is perhaps immaterial. What is definitely not immaterial is the energy used by these smokers in their migration from the great plains to the water holes. The fundamental problem here is that smoking bans do not stop people smoking, they just force the smokers to travel from workstation to smoking area, to leave the pub/restaurant and come back again or to stop the car. Looking at my current office for example, there are three banks of lifts in the building and my careful calculations suggest that one lift per bank is in constant use transporting s
