Excuse me, is it getting hot down here??

By: roberto lynch

It's here, isn't it? Global warming, I mean…it didn't exactly creep in like a thief in the night, did it? The early signs have been here for decades. The "greenhouse effect" has been a mantra for environmentalists since the 1970s. No…it came in the front door…in broad daylight…in fact, we left the door open...

Recently, the Christian Science Monitor reported that smoke from nearby burning forests and peat bogs have sent the carbon monoxide levels in Moscow to more than twice the admissible levels…and Western Russia has experienced the worst draught in 100 years.

And speaking of draught, many regions of the U.S .report the worse draught since The Dust Bowl years of the mid-1930s. These include the plains states, the Midwest, the southeast as well as the west. Will the U.S. "breadbasket" resemble the Arizona Desert landscape in the next 20 years? The New York Times reports that roof rats have invaded Beverly Hills… escaping the draught and burned out forests of the neighboring hills. Feasting on the largesse of the 90210 zip code, drinking from swimming pools, eating from dog food bowls and bird feeders, dining in Southern California's restaurants, snacking on bamboo shoots, clawing and biting and, oh yes, reproducing…a veritable plague of rats in upscale Beverly Hills…another draught casualty.

The U.S. National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration reports that the summer of 2002 was the hottest on record since 1936…hmmm...wasn't that the year of the great Dust Bowl?

All of this because of the huge levels of carbon dioxide spewed from the tail pipes of our cars. The U.S. is 5% of the world's population, yet we consume 25% of the world's non-renewable energy. Moreover, the Bush administration backed out of the Kyoto Accords…a 1997 treaty involving 160 nations whose sole purpose was to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, and thus, cut back the heat.

Our answer is to drill and burn, and to mass produce SUVs that get 5 MPG. This is an energy policy crafted by Mr. Chaney, big auto and big oil, and it is literally burning us up. Do we have to wait until the Pacific Ocean eats California before we recover from our oil addiction?

We are all in denial…big time, and all our present government can do is enable us…don't worry about the crude oil supply…we'll just take Iraq…if we can't drill in the ANWR (not yet), then we'll drill in the Everglades and the Colorado Rockies. When my 6 year olds study American history in high school, the National Parks will be a memory…replaced by oil derricks, pipelines, and access roads. You don't think that this administration will change anytime soon, do you? In any case, the New Democrats are pretty much the same, aren't they…make America safe for major corporations. The shills for major corporations are firmly entrenched (even if they had to steal an election to get there), and they don't give a rat's ass about global warming or anything that affects the health of our planet. Just keep those tax cuts coming.

We have gotten ourselves into a hell of a mess, haven't we? Does it matter if we capture every terrorist in the world, and kill or incarcerate them is we are literally on fire.

During the summer or 2002, fires in Arizona and Colorado consumed forests roughly the size of New Hampshire. The Great Lakes are shrinking. The September issue of the National Geographic reports that the water level of the Great Lakes has fallen from Duluth, Minnesota to Kingston, Ontario. A beachside house in Traverse City, Michigan in 1955 is now a good walk from the waterline of Lake Michigan. Similar conditions exist in Lake Ontario and Lake Superior. In the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron, the water level has shrunk over 40 inches in the last 5 years…less snow pack runoff due to …you guessed it…warmer temperatures. The heat cannot escape…it is trapped by greenhouse gases.

There seem to be ample evidence that it is getting hot down here, Now what do we do about it? Bomb every factory that mass produces gas guzzlers? Assassinate every government official who has ties to big auto or big oil? (would that ever be a lot of wet work, whew.) Vote for Ralph Nader? Turn the thermostat to 65 degrees, ride the bus, quit using the car for 3 block errands. Hell, I don't know.

Whatever we are doing now…it ain't enough.

The world population increases by 319,000 everyday (according to the World Population Council)…what will tell them when they come of age…"sorry, future generations, we fucked up and cooked the planet"…sigh. Those high school commencement speakers were right…weren't they?? We changed the world all right…we ruined it.