Global Warming? Aw jeez, how bad can it be?

It’s time we stopped raging about the hazards of Global Warming and looked at the bright side! Instead of alarmist jabbering, try and stay positive. For instance, if the planet keeps heating up then we’ll gradually need less heating oil for our homes, as winter simply becomes “late fall”! If we use less heating oil, then less pollution is released into the atmosphere…problem solved! Plus, I’m sure the good people at Dow Chemicals will devise a fabulous new line of designer UV Ray Sun Protection Ensembles! That’ll give our fashion industry a shot in the arm and thus we’ve created more jobs! Besides, once the sun burns out we’re all gonna die anyway, why cry about it?

There are some nice folks out there who will remind you that none of the major religious texts mention Global Warming, at least by name, so therefore it’s not true! Damn pesky scientists, what do they know? Let’s not forget Global Warming has the same initials as our beloved President, G.W.! How cataclysmic can it really be?

Now, let’s get down to “facts” here. The truth is that most of the globe-straddling corporations are spending billions in taxpayer dollars to research new fuels which will poison the planet in new, exciting ways, without having to lower the price per gallon! Take THAT, Al Gore! Even though the 109th congress came and went without the promised increase in alternative fuel research, you can be sure that we’ll see plenty of commercials during various sporting events that promise, the truth notwithstanding, that BP and Exxon and the other good guys of the energy industry are making this planet a better, cleaner place! I mean, there’s always lots of happy children playing in green, green parks or surfing on sparkling waves in those ads, that’s all the facts I need! Besides, we’re all switching to ethanol fuel so it will soon be a handful of countries outside of our borders, not us, whose staple food crop will be stolen by American corporations and put directly into our fuel tanks with virtually invisible gains in either pollution control or price adjustment! Who cares if a bunch of foreign terrorists starve as long as we get an ineffectual token effort from Exxon to improve Global Warming, and we can still remain Saudi-dependent! Everbody wins!

Who cares if the director of the R&D Budget and Policy Program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science is on record stating that most research agencies are slashing their spending quotas by twenty percent or more because of “budget uncertainty”? Probably just a bunch of left-wing propaganda anyway.

The way prices keep rising, we’ll only be able to drive our SUVs nine miles for a day’s wages…so it’s the problem that solves itself!

The truth is that we don’t need to worry about Global Warming. All of these problems are “junk science”. I’d rather trust the opinions of Senators from oil-producing states and a President and V.P. whose livelihoods are tied into oil and energy production, than a pack of renegade scientists with nothing to gain…right?

Oh, I gotta go. The SPF 50,000 tanning lotion just hit the shelves at Wal Mart. Gonna pick me up a case.

Imagine there's no Ford or Chevy...

I would think that no one who knows me would accuse me of being a luddite, far from it. I love my computers; so that I have a pathetic dependency thereon…sleek laptops make me happy in a truly disturbing way. My iPod is a dear friend. So no, my friends, I do not fear technology nor am I unfamiliar with its manifold benefits. I embrace it.

You’re waiting for the “but”, aren’t you? Here it is:

BUT…it has occurred to me, as I’m sure it’s occurred to you at some time, whether when you found yourself looking out through the green glass of a beer bottle, or were under some other spell that temporarily suspended the trance of dullness which our stress-bound daily world addles us with. It is this: I experienced more difficulty than I would have guessed when I tried to imagine my daily life, and more to the point, the daily life of my city, even my state or my country, without some of these things which we accept or endure as part of our existence:

• Imagine an entire day without your cell phone. I don’t mean as though you were on a camping trip…I’m saying imagine they don’t exist. Envision everyone in your city or town without their cell phones. No wireless telephones whatsoever. None. Forget about the economic impact and all that crap, just think about the effect this would have on our lives, whether by our phones or those of others.
• Imagine the entire day without e-mail or the internet. Now, I don’t mean without checking your e-mail…we’ve all done that (I hope), whether on vacation or whatever. I mean imagine that for a day the internet and e-mail do not exist.
• Imagine watching two hours of television…especially a sporting event, without seeing a single car commercial. Not one. Seriously, this may seem frivolous but take a moment and really imagine it. What would fill the void? This applies to any car-related commercials too: insurance, tires, car cleaning products, motor oil commercials with gold-colored translucent horses galloping through fields of petroleum in an Exxon-fueled hallucination...etc.
  
• Imagine spending the entire day without thinking about or worrying about money ONCE.
  
• Imagine reading the news, or watching a full hour of news coverage without hearing about the war in Iraq or the ‘war on terror’ a single time. It wasn't that long ago that you could do this.
  
• Imagine spending the entire day, and I mean being out and about: on the road, in transit, in public places, etc., without seeing an advertisement. Not a single advertisement anywhere, including radio, internet or television. That’s one of my favorites.
• Imagine spending an entire day with your usual media influx, TV time, internet use, the news, magazines, radio, etc., without having to hear about god%!$@ American Idol. Wouldn’t that be…something?
• Same question as above, insert Paris Hilton.
  
• Imagine Jeremy running out of things to rant about!

…not bloody likely.

-J.