Tuesday, May 29, 2012

The real cause of global warming


There is an inordinate amount of conjecture, commotion and crap spread about global warming on the internet.  If you read the duller corners of the internet, you might find a bunch of boring old scientists droning on about CO2 equivalents, and radiative forcing, and statistical gibberish.  But in the more colorful parts of the web, there are at least as many conspiracy nutter web-narcissists claiming that it is the sun shining out of Al Gore’s ass that is to blame.  Well, to save you a lot of web surfing and wondering about this issue, let me fill you all in.  Global warming isn’t caused by burning coal, or farting cows, or fuzzy little seals insulating the arctic ice floes.  Global warming is caused by me.

That’s right, I did it.  Hurricane Katrina?  Easy.  I don’t like jazz.  The melting arctic ice?  Well how else are we supposed to kill seal pups now that we can’t club them any more?  The droughts and floods and bathwater oceans?  I did those as well. Want to know why it started taking off in the mid-80’s?  That was me growing up and hitting puberty.  You see, it is all my fault.  Every last thousandth of a degree.

Back in college, a friend of mine, who is now a prominent environmentalist, showed me that the easiest way to defuse an argument- any argument- is to take personal responsibility for the problem.  It’s a great strategy.  Cuts off all sorts of kvetching at the heels.  So that’s where I’m going with climate change. I did it.  So stop arguing.  Take down all those websites "debating the unsettled issues" and use the server space for videos of anthropogenicized cats instead.  Because the debate is now over.  The global warming is mine.

And now that I have taken ownership of the problem, please don’t call it “anthropogenic” any more.  Call it “Lemmingogenic” instead.  But since LGW doesn’t spell anything, let’s all call it “Lemmingogenic Atmospheric Baking”.  LAB.  Because I am the LAB Lemming.

Of course, if there is one common theme from humanity’s response over the past decade to the problem I caused, it is that all the effort involved in mitigating the damage must be bourne by someone other that the person at fault.  So go ahead, folks.  Clean up my mess, while I lounge around and start sinking Pacific atolls between sixpacks. Lounging is what I do.  Especially here.  Sure, it’s my fault.  But it’s Bangladesh’s problem.  Tough luck guys.  Or as the googlefish says:
  আপনার ক্ষতি

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