Student Bodies

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8175219.stm  

I've just been reading that "The amount of funding universities in England receive could be linked to their reductions in carbon emissions from 2011, under new proposals."

I'm not sure it will be that easy. I remember from my student days, that fellow students, after a night or two on the town, drinking lots of gassy bear, are well know for unexpected carbon emissions, sometimes in lectures,
mostly consisting of stray methane.

Do you remember the Young Ones episode when Neil appeared to get pregnant, and then all one heard was (from the outside of their flat), a loud noise as all the flatulence erupted into the atmosphere, rather like one of those noisy balloons which whistle rudely as they deflate. Not knowing this, Mike came in, and said, "congratulations, have a cigar", and there was a loud bang!

Of course students were never quite like the "Young Ones" in my day. They were a fairly hard working bunch, and rather clever. I remember one chap in the days of Punk Rock, who died his long hair green from the shoulder down for "street cred". Come the summer holidays, and the search for holiday jobs, all he had to do was to cut it off, and he was instantly presentable!

Long hair is also normally linked to a high carbon footprint. It needs more water to wash, more shampoo, perhaps a hair dryer to dry. Today's students seem to keep their hair long and clean, so perhaps they should cut it more often. But in the bad old days, I remember some students for whom a hair wash was something done about once a term, if they remembered. So perhaps they were more like the Young Ones after all!