Inspired for the most part by an article written by Guardian science correspondent Ian Sample, some by an article by Pulitzer Prize op-ed columnist Thomas L. Friedman in the New York Times, as well as others I’ve read over the past couple of years, I decided to try my hand at environmental journalism. Feel free to leave a comment to let me know how I’m doing. Just remember – it’s all about science.
The most exalted of the world’s eminent scientists – ever – are predicting a new warm period set to begin in the very near future, which could increase the earth’s temperature by as much as 60-70 degrees Celsius in some places. That’s 120-140 degrees Fahrenheit. It has been confirmed by really advanced super-computer models written by the world’s most intelligent people that, should this take place, and there’s absolutely no doubt whatsoever in the minds of all reasonable people everywhere – at least the smart and scientific ones – that it will, vast amounts of ice and snow will melt quickly, creating a huge volume of run-off water that will overwhelm rivers and streams creating local flooding before eventually raising the levels of lakes and oceans. Much of the ice currently covering small lakes will also disappear.
The event will be so dramatic that it requires a special scientific term. Called “summer†by top experts, it is expected to transform our daily lives. The impact on the ecosystem will be unmistakable to the naked eye. Biologists who publish scientific papers in the world’s most prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journals of science – the really scientific ones – are predicting enormously rapid increases in populations of everything ranging from bacteria, viruses, and insects – including the really dangerous and annoying ones – to small land creatures that eat garbage and bite people; and some are poisonous.
The most obvious transformation will be to plants, which will come in such variety that at least 100 billion more dollars in research funding is needed for further speculation. This much is thought to be expected: Much of the ground will be covered with small blade-like plants. There will be cancer-like cell growth on trees and bushes that are likely to expand into strange shapes. Although there is little agreement as yet on the colors of these growths, an artist’s conception is shown below.
A most respected representative at the unimpeachably honest, neutral, and objective – and dare I say “respected†again, that is by anyone who’s not totally wearing a tin-foil hat – United Nations, speaking for all the world’s really good scientists, declared that accurate prediction of the coming warm period will prove once and for all that the trillion dollars already invested in the UN climate science program has been worth every penny. “If anything, funding should be increased. All humanity owes a great debt to the organization and its supporters – and we have a Nobel Peace Prize to prove it – which should come in the form of tax increases around the world and special license permits that we can sell at enormous prices in exchange for nothing to that persistent plague on humanity – private industry.â€Â
Of course, unlike their self-involved and completely political rather than scientific opposition, the great halls of scientific inquiry at the United Nations are filled with the most sincere real scientists to have ever existed. You can be sure that all the money will go directly to important things, without which you will all die horrible, horrible, agonizing deaths after suffering in the worst imaginable way for a long time. And you’re lucky too. The established scientific fact that nature is completely screwed up now and it will take centuries of global hardship to fix it is all your fault. They even have a long report that says so; undeniable proof that has also been confirmed by the preeminent scholar of the 20th and 21st centuries, Professor and Nobel Prize co-winner Al Gore. But you have to hurry and start sending money as soon as possible, otherwise you will all die horrible, horrible, agonizing deaths after suffering in the worst imaginable way for a long time.
But all the real scientific proof the great minds of our generation have to offer hasn’t stopped attempts by wackos who voted for Bush and pay for products that involve Oil Companies from trying to cause confusion. They’re stupid anyway, and don’t know anything, and join Churches solely for the purpose of denying the existence of climate, and really it’s all a big conspiracy against reason, the air we breath, and world peace.
These superstitious nut-jobs who can’t accept what scientists tell them are making some ludicrous claims. Among them is the anti-science false belief that the coming warm period will be very similar to naturally occurring warm periods of the past. They have made up a goofy derogatory term, “winter,†to describe what every established scientific organization knows simply as “normal weather – at least before Bush and the Big Oil takeover.†Some of these fourth grade drop-outs, apparently in some kind of religious fit involving psychopathic “visions,†claim to have actually experienced “summers†(plural) again and again during their own life-times.
Speaking with some of the rank and file of conservative politics, one enters the bizarre landscape of the paranoid, hate-filled, racist fantasy world of FoxNews and Rush Limbaugh. They seem to have their own language to fill in the reality gaps. “They’re called leaves,†smirked a dweeby little Tea Bagger from the inbred state of Missouri that voted for Bush instead of Gore in 2000, Bush again in 2004, and against Obama in 2008. Checking to see whether the Glenn Beck anti-science movement was wide-spread, I asked someone else about the predicted ground covering in summer. “Grass,†she responded without hesitation. Yeah, I suppose she’ll be among the first to try smoking it.
Confronting right-zingers with the new summer science could make a cute little calico kitten cry and will probably cause the extinction of baby seals. No doubt, in the real-world where healthy people live, young girls will drown from the flooding of newly created deserts like we saw in the opening film of the best-intentioned and ultimately essential Copenhagen climate summit; where the true meaning of life and our relationship with the unfolding universe would have been clearly charted had it not been for the well-planned sabotage of secret agents with ties to the Bush administration who want to kill everybody. It was a missed opportunity to align mother earth in such a way as to bring us all to a state of nirvana that only comes once a year – and really, 2009 was the year that mattered; so all the good people are really angry about that.
