Global Warming Factoid's for 2008: Factoid 10 ~ Of Polar Bears, Metrosexuals and Small Weenies
Your Global Warming Factoid of the Day is brought to you by Natural Resources Defense Council who has joined with Greenpeace in suing the U.S. Department of Interior for missing a January 9th deadline listing polar bears as endangered.
The decision to list polar bears as being threatened because of the loss of Arctic sea ice was to take place on January 9th one year after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Agency first considered listing them under the Endangered Species Act.
It is believed by many that not protecting the polar bears in this way will subject them to extinction. However, opponent’s fear that by doing so will cause projects such as proposed power plants to come under more intense scrutiny if they produce greenhouse gasses. This will have implications reaching far beyond Alaska and the arctic.
Here is the real problem with global warming and why many conservatives choose to persist in the mistaken belief that climate change is a myth or, if real, nothing we humans go do anything about…it means changing the way human beings do things…big time! This has huge economic implications. Human beings tend to be short sighted. We have a hard time looking beyond our immediate needs or wants.
Perhaps my favorite Polar Bear argument comes from those who claim they can link global warming and oceanic pollution to shrinking polar bear weenies. Frankly, I am not certain just how valid this argument is. But imagine if some scientist somewhere linked global warming to shrinking human male genitalia. I can see the outcry now. There would be telethons, protests and petitions all around.
I have always blamed the stunted growth of my own penis to yellow dye no. 7….maybe stress….or simply because I am a white guy. I don’t know! Hey girls… I have always been a grower and not a shower anyway.
Unfortunately it’s hard to get opponents of global warming prevention to take it seriously when we are sending scientists out into the arctic to measure polar bear dicks. This is not too far from awarding government grants to measure bovine flatulence.
My reasons for being concerned about global warming are three fold and far more reasonable then some of the more shrill voices on either side of the argument. The reasons we need to be concerned are clean air and clean water. We need both to survive and be healthy. The third point is adaptability. In order for us to survive we will need to be able to adapt to a world where the climate is changing dramatically. If we can do something to prevent, curtail or even slow it down…then why not? It seems stupid to continue on the way we are.
Reducing man made greenhouse gasses is one way we can make this effort. This weekend I was waiting for a bus down by the Cherry Creek mall and not having a book with me decided to count the number of SUV’s and trucks that whizzed by. I counted 75 in under 10 minutes. Many of these vehicles carried only the driver and no other passengers.
In a city the size of Denver why do you need such big, monstrous vehicles? The average driver living near Cherry Creek is most likely a metrosexual any way and has no real masculine reason to own such a vehicle in the first place other than for show. This is like balls on a priest, tits on a bull or even a nun. They serve no functional purpose.
Denver, especially during the hot dry summer months, has a real problem with ozone. Single passenger vehicles contribute largely to the problem causing us to have many days where those with respiratory ailments need to consider staying in doors. Despite the pleading of the state and city government people do next to nothing to curtail their driving during the day.
For metrosexuals SUV’s are really about their virility or the size of their penis. I am not sure what is for women drivers. Maybe it’s a clitoral thing? I don’t know. I am sure if we all cut out products using yellow dye no. 7 everything will be okay. Meanwhile, why don’t you avail yourself of public transportation or at least smaller more economical and environmentally friendly vehicles?
We enjoy a lot of liberty in this country. My inner Libertarian really appreciates this. I don’t like authority figures, the government or anyone for that matter telling me what to do and how to live my life. Unfortunately our free will choices, used to satisfy our whims of the moment, do nothing when it comes to collective good of our species and the other life forms we share this planet with.
I don’t think we are going to see a lot of change until we are forced to change, either by circumstance brought about by worsening conditions, or until some assholes in the government finally say, “Fuck it! You can’t do whatever you want any more.”
This is the type of change that may well have to be forced upon people starting with sanctions. One of the things we may need to look at is charging SUV and truck owners more for their driver’s licenses and tabs. Single passenger vehicles during rush hour or other peak times should pay more as well. Field sales people and other professionals who drive around by themselves all day for their jobs should have to buy special work related driver’s license allowing them to drive.
The extra money can be funneled back into the private sector to invest in energy research that may ultimately lead to the development of products and energy sources that are cooler to use and reduce our carbon footprint in this sector. Hopefully in the meantime people will learn to avails themselves of public transportation and other more environmentally friendly means of transportation. We might even see the average American waistline shrink as a result.
I am in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek mood this afternoon. But despite my cheekiness we really need to wake up collectively and understand that we are the beggars to our own demise and unless we willingly make commonsense changes we will be forced to do so when conditions finally worsen.