By Jack Edwards
The last time I wrote about “climate change,” which I so primitively referred to as “global warming” (so passé), I failed to anticipate that otherwise peaceful, loving people, many of whom were nurturing mothers whose hands regularly caressed the soft cheeks of their precious newborns, would come after me with steak knives. In their defense, they were not savagely attacking a real human being. All of them could no doubt pass a lie detector test that I was, in fact, a sloped-foreheaded Neanderthal. (They wouldn’t be the first to make this mistake.) But in the spirit of saving my own skin, please discontinue reading this week’s column if you can’t take what we in the humor industry refer to as a “climate change joke.” We “climate jokers” are a small but mighty band of fearless warriors fighting on the cutting edge of the untamed plains of the humor frontier.
I don’t want to brag about my scientific credentials, particularly my credentials in the area of meteorology, but suffice it to say that I watch my share of television. I have a PhD from the Meteorology School of hard knocks. And I’ve come a long way from the Jack Edwards that wrote the column Confessions of a Global Warming Agnostic (http://jocularious.com/?p=128). I’m still a climate change agnostic, but now I’m a climate change agnostic that has decided to develop a “Plan B” in the event that this whole climate change thing is as eminent as that multiple-mansion owning, private jet flying, “carbon credit tree selling” Al Gore claims it is.
Here’s my take on it. The modern American automobile emits practically zero carbon emissions these days compared to years past. And they’re only getting more efficient and less polluting. But the population of the United States is about 350 million, and many of these people are still in middle school, so they can’t drive yet. Whereas India and China for example, are filled with BILLIONS of people who drive three-wheel jalopies that emit, to my eye, the equivalent of a year’s worth of one US car’s carbon emissions simply starting up their contraption. Does this mean we should just surrender our fight against climate change? Does this mean that we should just throw in the towel? Yes! That’s absolutely what we should do! If the world’s climate is, in fact, changing, it’s hopeless.
If getting a “C” in Economics taught me anything, it taught me about supply and demand. And from what I see of melting glaciers and sad looking polar bears clinging to the last remnants of floating sheets of ice, the price of “high ground” is about to shoot through the roof faster than an emperor penguin can say, “Where did that ice shelf with my family just go?” Let’s put it this way, some say “foothills,” I say “future ocean front lots.” The time to invest is now, people.
And in case you think I sound callus, that I’m simply a cold hearted, money grubbing piece of scum, well… that would be hard for me to defend against. But slow down there cowpoke, I also consider my neighbor’s well-being. That is why I support federal legislation requiring that by 2017, all high school graduates are proficient in engineering the design and construction of those houses that sit on tall poles over the tide water. I also support requiring that Physical Education programs include a full unit on the lost art of walking on stilts.
Well, I have to run now. I need to get a nose job and change my name. Based on my prior experience, if only one single loving mother continued reading this column after the first paragraph, right about now, she’s heading to her kitchen for a steak knife.