If the overlords of the newspaper industry need a clue as to why times have gotten so tough, here’s a freebie for them: Some of the basics of business aren’t being observed.

Exhibit A: Me, the lifelong newspaper reader who had to chase somebody down to ask if I could subscribe.

When I left the newspaper business after thirty years as a reporter, editor and columnist, I lost all the usual benefits – health coverage, a retirement plan, a salary that would prompt the average Wal-Mart worker to offer a few bucks to tide me over, etc. But the thing I missed the most was having a newspaper delivered to my driveway every morning at no cost. At least, at no cost to me.

My departure wasn’t sudden. I gave the requisite two weeks notice, and showed up every day for those two weeks. (I won’t pretend that I worked real hard, if at all, but I was physically present.) At no point did anyone ask if I wanted to continue my subscription as a paying chump. Uh, I mean customer.

A couple of days after my departure, the paper ceased being dropped in my driveway. I waited for somebody to call to see if I wanted to resume service. And waited. And waited. And waited.

Ladies and gentleman of the press, this situation was … what’s the word I’m looking for here? Oh, yeah – stupid. It was almost a slam-dunk certainty that I would become a paying customer. All somebody needed to do was ask. Nobody asked. After a week or so, I sent an email to a fellow I know in the circulation department of my former employer. He arranged for delivery to resume, after obtaining a credit-card number from me.

The point is, I had to find him and make it happen. Otherwise, I’d still be reading out-of-date magazines and second-hand books at the breakfast table. And you know what? I was getting used to life without a newspaper.

Ultimately, I felt a little bit like a car salesman who walks home after his last day at work, and wonders why nobody seemed to notice that he needed a car.

I think I’m going to like this business with “carbon credits.”

That phrase and its sister utterances, “carbon footprint” and “carbon neutral,” are this year’s eco-catechisms. We’re all supposed to determine our carbon footprints – which is to say, figure out how much energy we use – and then look for ways to reduce that amount. So far, so good. I’m all about giving fewer of my dollars to power, natural gas and oil companies.

But if you can’t actually make a dent in your energy consumption, you can pay other people to reduce theirs. A whole brokerage system has arisen out of this idea, which is how carbon credits came into creation. Wealthy people who live in huge homes with four-figure monthly energy bills – people like Mr. Inconvenient Truth himself, Al Gore, for instance – buy the “right” to use the energy that somebody else has stopped using.

Somebody needs to be putting some money on the table. My table, specifically.

Why? Let me start with the most recent change in my life: I quit my job two weeks ago, which means I no longer make a daily round-trip commute of 30 miles. Furthermore, because I don’t have my mainstream media reporting job now, I don’t drive around in search of people to interview about, say, Karl Rove’s involvement in Mother Teresa’s mysterious death. (You didn’t know she died mysteriously? Damn, he’s good.) That’s more miles saved. Anybody who drives an SUV owes me some money, by my calculations.

Also, last year I decided to see how far into the sweltering Southern summer I could go before turning on the air conditioning in my home. I made it until July 5th. I’m determined to beat that date this summer, but it’s going to be tough. We’re not even into May yet, and my little patch of North Carolina already feels tropical. It’s well after dark right now as I write this, but it’s still muggy. In fact, let me go check the house temperature at the thermostat. (Pause.) Ouch. It’s 84 degrees in here, and this is the nighttime cool. That’s more money somebody owes me.

Best of all, there’s a bar within walking distance of my house. For the right kind of bucks, I’ll make that walk every night.

Yes sir. Love those carbon credits.

Before I get all grouchy and negative about the newly announced discovery of an Earth-like planet a mere 120 trillion miles away — practically in the neighborhood, in a galactic sense — let me say that I like space stuff. The more we learn about other planets, the more we understand about the origins of our own.

With me so far? Good. But now on to the part you’re going to hate: There is no other advanced life out there. We’re it.

Yes, that’s opinion, not fact, and no, I’m not an expert in these matters. I’m just a guy with some common sense and no burning need to believe in aliens or advanced space civilizations or any other Star Trek-y, Star War-y, Third Encounter-ish kind of thing that everyone else seems to desperately want to be true.

The newly discovered planet, called by the un-poetic name “Gliese 581c,” apparently has the same temperature as Earth and seems to have water. Maybe, as we learn more, we’ll even discover it’s even got the right combination of factors to maybe allow primitive, tiny creatures to evolve. But the series of events and steps and circumstances that can lead to intelligent, evolved life is so complicated that it’s remarkable it happened even once. We’re a lucky accident. Earth somehow hit the precise combination of distance from the sun, presence of water, atmosphere, temperature, and a countless number of other variables. Furthermore, our ace card was Jupiter, a planet of such size and gravity that it acts as a shield against asteroids and comets – which otherwise would be pummeling Earth at a rate 100 times greater than they have in the past, according to estimates. Jupiter allowed the evolutionary process to dodge disaster long enough to produce us deep thinkers.

The chance of that precise combination happening twice is something akin to two people winning the exact same amount of money in separate lotteries by picking the exact same numbers which were drawn in the exact same order. And that they lived next door to each other.

Sure, it’s theoretically possible. But damn unlikely. So it’s best if we just get accustomed to loneliness.