ASK MR. SHUEY #3: THE END OF THE WORLD

From April, 10 2007


Mr. Shuey,

I've been hearing a lot about global warming, but it's still fucking cold outside. Someone told me that it's going to snow this weekend. Is that complete bullshit? I also heard that Al Gore has decided to try his luck as a concert promoter. Do you think rock and roll can save the planet, or should I keep working on my escape pod?

Shanai
Minneapolis

Shanai,

This weekend ended yesterday, and I didn't see any snow. So yes, the phenomenon known as global warming is complete hokum.

Unless of course it's not.

I am not a climate scientist, but with my limited understanding of the subject it's clear that when scientists do talk about global warming they are talking about mean or average temperatures over the whole planet. (That's why they call it GLOBAL warming and not MINNEAPOLIS warming.) People who point to unusually warm days in December or the opposite in April or May to prove or disprove the theory are not really grasping the scientific principles involved and are usually just whiny jerks anyway.

Numbers being numbers, there is little debate over whether global temperatures are on the rise. The real debate is about how much of this is a result of human activity. I don't have the answer to that, but it seems reasonable to me that dumping tons and tons of pollutants into the atmosphere is bound to have SOME effect.

This is why I have chosen to do my part and drive a steam-powered automobile with a boiler that burns clean, low sulfur anthracite coal! It is fast as a horse-and-a-half and gets four miles per twenty pound sack!

(Full disclosure: The Pennsylvania Coal Association has hidden my parents in an abandoned mine shaft in Centralia and their continued care and feeding are attendant on my trumpeting the many fine qualities of clean, hard, delicious anthracite coal.)

And don't count on rock and roll to remedy the situation. Myself being the notable exception, the world of rock and roll is peopled exclusively by juvenile, mentally diseased nitwits.

Think about it, would you let these cretins stay in your apartment unattended?

I didn't think so.

And you expect them to clean-up the Earth?

The line-ups for these, "Live Earth" concerts are almost all has-beens an hacks. None of these alleged artists are cutting checks themselves, but they want you and I to pony-up outlandish sums of money to attend their crummy concerts. All the while they fly in and out on private jets, eat shrimp cocktail backstage and get to hear what swell people they are.

So yes, keep working on your escape pod. And it better be a damn good one. There is but one habitable planet in this solar system, and you're on it.

Speculation about options outside of our own solar system vary, but the nearest opportunity I've read about was discovered by the HARPS spectrograph in the area of a star designated HD 69830. Some astronomers think there may be Earth-like planets in its orbit. Here's the bad part: At the speed of light it will take you 41 years to reach it.

So pack a big lunch.

Best of luck!

P.S As to Al Gore's transition from lawyer to politician to concert promoter I must say it is a demonstrable slide DOWN in the human shit-puddle. I am not sure there is a lower form of life than concert promoter, and that includes presidential candidate.