I'm Not Getting a New Puppy till Climate Change Ends. Not Kidding!
Please join me at PetStrikers- NO new puppies or kittens till climate change ends.
I don’t care how cute you think this little rat terrier puppy is. If you’re a pet lover, you must resist taking this gorgeous little boy home till climate change ends.
Because I believe in loan forgiveness for everyone, gluing limbs to runways, grasshopper burgers, climate change computer models, lactating men, and gender fluidity, I will not replace Luunies, my recently deceased beloved rat terrier, with a new puppy. With the coming climate apocalypse, why subject what will become my best and most loyal friend to the misery of a miserable world about to fry from ‘extreme’ heat? No. I will endure the coming pain and suffering courageously alone. My moral compass and need for victim status require that of me. I will remain ‘petless.’
But I also believe in pixy dust. Climate change could soon end if we sprinkle a little dust in the air. That’s what researchers are telling me. Maybe Disney fairy tales do come true!
These researchers, called geoengineers, have theorized that if we spread enough stratospheric aerosols (fancy name for volcano dust) into the atmosphere, we could cool the earth. They think it will scatter enough of the sun’s energy that Grandma won’t have to move to the Artic Circle to grow her petunias.
Sadly, the geoengineers have burnt through millions of dollars doing their research and need millions more.
So, hallelujah! There appears to be a solution to climate change! It can’t happen fast enough. It’s been some kind of hot summer! Soon, if these geo-manipulators have their way, millions of cans of aerosol spray will be loaded into the bellies of military C5 transport jets and sprayed high in the atmosphere. These spray cans, say the geoengineers, are to be filled with sulfur dioxide and, if I might make a suggestion, mixed with a bit of flat black paint. I’m no scientist, but I think black paint is known to absorb light waves. Only then will I know that science is serious about climate change. Greta Thunberg can go back to school.
While I have chosen not to replace Luunies, my rat terrier, with a new puppy as my own personal protest against the coming climate apocalypse, others are choosing to glue themselves to bridges, freeways and runways. Believing that climate change is a much greater threat than even the scientist believe it is, we poor neurotic souls have taken the evidence of seeing smoke from forest fires, red ‘extreme heat’ zones in weather forecasts, and getting sweaty while taking Fluffy, the Scottish Fold white cat, for a summer jog as clear evidence that humanity is just about toast. Nearly burnt beyond human’s capacity to endure. So we organize to cause as much upheaval and mayhem as possible, not wanting to be miserable alone.
Some call themselves the ‘BirthStrikers.’ They’re not going to pop a kid until climate change is ended. I don’t have the heart to tell these women, some of them already approaching middle age, that there is this thing called a biological clock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
When not playing with superglue, fake blood, and disrupting traffic, and generally working themselves into a ‘sky-is-falling’ eco-anxiety frenzy, these BirthStrikers go home to their pets and read The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells. It’s a page-turner giving the fearful even more to fear than fear itself. The author, a journalist, will take your 18 bucks with the help of Amazon. While still on Amazon and just a click away, you might as well pick up a big 36 oz bottle of Activist Superglue for another 18 bucks. Imagine that, for 36 smacks, you can buy a book that took some poor tree’s life and some exotic chemicals co-joined to firmly bond even flesh to concrete all because we hate a natural resource called oil. Oh well, the glue will be here by tomorrow, so you can join our Extinction Rebellion buddies for a bloody sticky good time and a chance at getting run over.
So we all have our lines in the sand, and mine is no new puppy till climate change ends. And like the BirthStrikers, I’m calling on you all to join me.
Because I’m feeling lonely in my cause, I formed a group called ‘PetStrikers.’ Yes. PetStrikers- no new puppies or kittens until climate change ends. But I need your help. The challenge is huge.
Take San Fransisco and Seattle as examples. Both left-coast cities are full of citizens that believe in the Gospels of man-made climate change. They read the verses of The Uninhabitable Earth while sitting peacefully atop an old driftwood stump overlooking the Puget Sound or the Golden Gate Bridge. Possibly the stump I sat on 50 years ago reading Paul Ehrlich’s, The Population Bomb- another page-turner predicting the end of times due to overpopulation (same result- different cause). Understandably, a few will misinterpret the incoming tide for rising seas and claim they have smartphone proof.
There they sit, enjoying beautiful west coast sunsets when they should be packing for higher ground. The book said the sea will surely rise, and all the deniers will perish. But they stay, making me wonder if they are serious.
Eventually, they return home to their pets. Millions of them. This shouldn’t surprise anyone because San Francisco has more dogs eating and pooping than kids under 18. Seattle loves cats- there are more fur balls than two-legged rug rats (kids). Makes me wonder if they are seriously in for the cause.
So I ask you to join up with BirthStrikers, Extinction Rebellion, and now PetStrike. We’re looking for the neurotic, the thinly educated, and the emotionally fragile to participate in our collective juvenile hissy fits. In our narcissistic frenzy of self-importance, we reveal our contempt for our fellow humans. When blocking roads, pouring fake blood on the unsuspecting, and causing general mayhem, we prevent others from going about their business as if their business is not as important as our fears. We’re diggin for a reaction just like we used to do when we were kids.
I remember reaching the age I figured I could make it on my own. Maybe six or seven, I was triggered by some event I no longer recall. I told my mother I was running away from home. Certain of a strong emotional response that included tears, pleadings, and apologies, she didn’t even look up from the carrots she was shaving. “Let me finish these carrots, dear, and I’ll help pack a few things for you,” she said sweetly, depriving me of her much-anticipated reaction.
Instinctually, my mother knew I wasn’t serious. I was just diggin’ for a reaction. So she played along with my game. Had I been serious, I wouldn’t have told a soul and just slithered out the back door to make my way in the world. The cops would be called, and they’d rush over with dogs with long sniffers who would ferret out my path and perhaps find me hidden in a tree two houses down. You’d think that experience would teach my mother a lesson, but knowing her, she’d be mashing the potatoes and only look up to give me a sweet smile upon my return. “The police dogs didn’t scare you, did they, dear?” “No.” “You hungry?” “Ya.”
Just a little parody, folks. Enjoy your pets! Have a great weekend.
For some balance to the raging ‘climate change’ debate, I encourage you to read Judith Curry’s Climate Uncertainty and Risk. Dr. Curry is not a journalist but an actual climatologist and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. You can check out her book here.
Reading from a variety of sources is one way we ferret out what is possible, what is improbable, what is hyperbole, and what is true. Author James Clear said it well when he wrote, "One sign you haven’t done enough reading is if you find yourself agreeing with whatever book you read last. At first, it’s easy to be swayed by any reasonable argument. Once you’ve read a lot, you can see that even the best arguments have limitations."
He might be 81 years old, but Dr. John F. Clauser, a theoretical physicist, is clear as a starlit night in what he thinks regarding climate change. But what does a 2022 Nobel prize winner in physics know about the physical science of climate? Perhaps a bit more than a couple of pundits writing for the Washington Post. If so interested, you can read what he said at a recent talk to a room full of quantum theorists in Korea here. He speaks in plain English.
This inconvenient graph is from NOAA ( a US government agency). It shows a general cooling trend in global temperatures over the last eight years. If we extend this to over 700 years earlier, you’d observe gyrations resembling roller coasters. Greenland was covered with grass in one warming peak, which is how it got its name.
Thank you, JoAnn! I appreciate your readership.
Love your well researched, logical writings! Well Done!