Silflay Hraka

Hey, there’s a global warming middle ground!

Catastrophe movies are exciting and the prospects of catastrophe in real life even more exciting. Plus, lots of people want to think they are fighting in a moral crusade for a great good against evil and ignorance. They think they need to paint an extremely disastrous picture of the future in order to motivate people. So the prospect of global warming has a lot to offer. Plus, Mother Gaia is morally superior to us human enviro-sinners. Never mind that we are the products or creations of Mother Gaia. We fell out of Eden somehow or other when Mother Gaia’s natural selection made us too intelligent.

The deep skeptic school on global warming is also making an economic mistake. They correctly point out that restraints on CO2 emissions will raise the price of energy and therefore slow economic growth and lower living standards. But when they fail to push instead for a huge acceleration of nuclear, solar, wind, and other non-fossil fuel technology development they miss the opportunity to help create technologies that lower energy costs and clean up environments at the same time.

I must not be a deep skeptic, as my argument on CO2 emissions is not that restraints are expensive, but rather that even if everyone accepted the theory of anthropogenic warming, CO2 restraints are inefficient, inelegant, and driven by an impulse to punish the perceived sinner, rather than fixing the ostensible problem. This is one reason I continually refer to global warming as “The Rapture for secular humanists,” another being that I consider it a wonderful turn of phrase, and am thereby driven to share it with others as a means of illustrating my brilliance.

A third is that it functions as an excellent acquaintance filter at parties, allowing me to classify people based on their reaction;

“Bwa-ha-ha.” — People like me. They should be given a quality beer–a Delirium Tremens or Allagash Interlude.

“Ha. Christ, you’re an asshole.” — People related to me, or friends of long standing, who should also be given a quality beer, though one of perhaps slightly less caliber.

Pained silence - Neighbors of a different political bent whose children regularly interact with mine. They should be given a quality beer, because people in close circumstances have to get along, after all. Behind each other’s backs we can use terms like “closet facist” and “goddam hippies” to relieve the internal strain.

“..majority of climate scientists….Exxon-funded…catastrophe…..Kyoto” - People in need of new thought pathways. They should bring their own beer, but probably prefer wine in any case.

“*&^%$% you, establishment tool.” — kids and puritanical lefties. Intellectually they can be ignored. Physically, they should be watched, as the kids will try and snake the quality beer from the cooler and the puritans–their pale features twisted with fury–will inform the offsping that you’re evil. Sobbing children interfere with quality drinking time.

“You used to be such an independent thinker.” — liberal ex-girlfriend who cannot detect irony in her own pronunciations. Make sure her car gets a quality bumper sticker applied to it before she departs.

“She’s certainly let herself go.” — People I am married to.

“Quit groping me.” — People I am married to who need at least one more drink.

“Genius drips from your lips as honey does from the comb.” — The drunk in the mirror. He almost certainly needs another quality beer.