Batteries Asked To Reduce Emissions By Taking More Time Off
A study finds that using fewer, longer-lasting batteries could cut emissions, prompting the batteries to demand weekends and tiny hats.
LOWER WOMBLEY, A study has found that longer battery lifespans, smaller vehicle batteries and more ride-sharing would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 more effectively than manufacturing improvements alone. Several batteries responded by forming a union and asking for a production schedule with fewer unreasonable expectations.
The newly organised batteries met beneath a laminated BATTERIES UNITED sign. Nobody wanted to hold it. They demanded fewer electric vehicles fitted with enormous batteries, more shared cars, and a legal limit of one dramatic road trip per battery each year.
“People have finally noticed our carbon footprint,” said Nella Volt, spokesperson for the Battery Office of Rest and Reasonable Charging. “We’d also like a small window in the cupboard, plus the right to refuse being called the answer to everything.”
“Our long-term ambition is to become obsolete without anyone making a fuss.”
Manufacturers unveiled a battery said to last 400 years, on the condition that nobody uses, charges, transports, opens or gives it an appraising look. The prototype is resting in a padded drawer while a committee decides whether electricity counts as workplace pressure.
That prompted household appliances to make their own proposal. Manufacture fewer appliances, they said, beginning with a toaster that had already been made and was therefore emotionally complicated. The toaster released a statement through its crumb tray. It would accept a shorter life if formally recognised as a breakfast machine.
Ride-sharing went badly. Every vehicle maintained that it alone could carry a bag of groceries and three people who had forgotten where they were going. A town-hall mediator put the vehicles in a circle and asked how they felt about being full of lithium.
By evening, the batteries had accepted a pilot scheme: use them less, maintain them properly, replace them only when necessary. The Department of Green Things welcomed the plan and immediately ordered 14,000 commemorative batteries to mark lower battery demand. The batteries described this as “mixed messaging” and went on strike inside a calculator.
Analysts said cleaner technology still carries environmental costs. Sometimes using less matters more than making something slightly better. Officials in Lower Wombley are now considering whether the most sustainable calculator is one left permanently at 2 percent, in the hope that nobody asks it to do anything.
“Our long-term ambition is to become obsolete without anyone making a fuss,” said Nella Volt, as the union voted unanimously to ban motivational posters featuring charging cables.