Monday, February 18, 2008

A Modest Proposal to End Global Warming (With Apologies to Johnathan Swift)

A Modest Proposal to End Global Warming (With thanks to Jonathan Swift)

Mother Earth is heating up; the Polar Ice Caps are melting. Record heat and drought are striking the planet. Global Warming is upon us.

The prophet Al Gore has shown us the way with An Inconvenient Truth. We shall worship at the Altar of Global Warming. The Global Warming Truth shall set us free as we worship Mother Earth. Indeed, we shall enter into a Holy War against Global Warming. We cannot lose this Total War. We shall Google Global Warming to death. We are all soldiers in the war against Global Warming. No conscientious objectors or 4F’s in this crusade. Onward Christian Soldiers into the Global Warming hell of fire and brimstone. We shall go where no man, not even Nostradamus, has gone before. Catholic theology shall view it as a just war, and Jihadists can earn credit to meet 72 carbonless virgins in Heaven.

All of us earthy sinners can receive absolution by genuflecting and receiving carbon credits at the Holy Church of the Carbon Redeemer.

We must reduce our carbon footprint for it is the cause of global warming. Let us eliminate henceforth all carbon-based fuels, such as oil, gas, and coal. Energy gluttons can repent at the shrine of zero carbon energy. We must switch to solar, wind, hydro, thermo climes, and nuclear. Only electric, solar or hydrogen cars will be allowable. Walking, jogging, biking, skating, canoes, row boats, and sailing vessels will still be permissible means of transportation, but not camels, donkeys, mules, or horses because of their carbon based road apples. No more horse and carriage rides in Central Park or New Orleans.

We can start by deleting carbon from the carbon free periodic table. No more carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, or carbon tetrachloride.

We have to choose between mottos though:

Live carbon free or die

or

Carbon free or carbon tax

No cows for food because of methane emissions. Hold your burps! Composting is out. Neither wood burning in the fireplace to warm our houses at night nor in a stove; only solar heating can cook our food and dry our clothes. We must avoid burnt carbon emissions. If you live in the Frost Belt, then move to the Sun Belt.

What if that doesn’t reverse global warming? Then we as soldiers must be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. We shall have no choice but to end the carbon footprint of all carbon-based life forms by eliminating all carbon-based life forms, starting with Homo sapiens, then all mammals, fish, plants, bacteria, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Even the ultimate survivors, Castro, cock roaches and coyotes, must be terminated with extreme prejudice. We must defer to the wisdom of Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

All other “isms” will disappear in a flash flood: atheism, capitalism (sorry Ayn Rand), communism, deism, fascism, hedonism, monotheism, nationalism, Nihilism, sado-masochism, socialism, social Darwinism, sophism, theism. Certainly no pacifism! No one can be agnostic about global warming although transcendental meditation and yoga will help.

Think of the blessings.

Viruses, including computer viruses, will no longer form a threat to carbon based life forms.

No further debate between global warming and an oncoming ice age.

Confused about the dynamics of carbon offsets? No problem if we “off” carbon-based life forms.

Air pollution, water pollution, and toxic pollution will be solved.

Forget about pro life/pro choice, big box stores, blow-dried liberals, border security, budget deficits, Detroit, endangered species, gas guzzling SUV’s, gender gaps, Hamas, Hezbollah, HMO’s, Iran, Iraq, judicial appointments, mass transit, Microsoft, the Mideast, Midwest, North Korea, paparazzi, political correctness, pop tarts, porn, Radical Islam, right wing wacko nut jobs, Santa Anas, Scientology and Tom Cruise, starvation and malnutrition, stem cell research, Taliban, talk radio, taxes, The Donald, trial lawyers, U. S. News & World Reports, Universal Health Insurance, Universal Soldiers, and even the Green Revolution.

No more NIMBY’s because global warming is universally in everyone’s back yard.

No more debate over free trade because globalization has triumphed.

The Anti-Christ, anti-Semitism, antitrust, anti-war, anti-mites and antidisestablishmentarianism will disappear.

Think of the benefits for all.

Partisanship will be no more for we are all in the same carbon sump.

Bias will no longer exist. No gender bias, no genetic bias, no media bias, no liberal bias, no racial bias for we are all equal.

No more prescription drugs beginning with the letter “V”: Valium, Viagra, Vioxx, Vicodan, and Vytorin.

No more endless debates at the UN or in faculty meetings.

No more books about Who Shot JFK, J.R., or Florida 2000. No more digging for Blackbeard”s Treasure, deciphering the mysteries of DNA, or carbon dating the Shroud of Turin. The human genome project will be moot. Henry Ford will be proven right; “History is bunk.”

Finally an end to Rambo, Rocky (and Bullwinkle).

Most important of all. No more listening to “it’s a Small, Small World After All,” for it is now a global, global warming world after all. And an end to the three most pernicious words in the English language: “No assembly required.”

Of course, we must sacrifice. Thus, no more Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, Miss Hawaiian Tropic, the Swedish Bikini Team, and the Really Desperate Housewives of Orange County, not to mention Borat.

What if we’re wrong? What if Chicken Little is wrong about the sky falling and the temperature rising?

Then we’ll never know unless we settle a possibly carbonless space.

Let’s get serious.

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