(Warning: In the following post, Eric completely loses his sense of humor.)
Am I annoyed by the Seattle Weekly’s cheeky issue: "50 Ways To Celebrate Global Warming"?
A little.
Global warming is fun to celebrate, but do you know what’s really worth celebrating? Bankrupt farmers, forest fires, and salmon going belly-up.
What a funny theme the Weekly editors picked! But it’s not as funny as global extinctions on an unprecedented scale. Now that’s funny! And the only thing funnier than extinction is disease, famine, flooding, and desertification afflicting the world’s poorest people. OMG, that is downright hilarious!
In fairness, the article itself consists of a pretty innocuous list of summertime activities. And there are even a few planet-friendly ideas, like not watering your lawn. But the issue’s theme is just plain stupid.
But wait: it gets even more stupid. The latest Weekly also includes two articles on the effects of this summer’s drought—one on water conservation and one on parched salmon–but utterly fails to mention that there may be a connection to, uh, that global warming thing they’re celebrating.
Scientists are quick to point out that the low-snowpack and resultant drought closely mimic their predictions for the coming decades. In fact, local climate researchers are calling the low snowpack, "a warning shot across the bow."
It’s sad that the Weekly’s irony-laden theme failed to inform their reporting—they could have taken an incisive look at what global warming really means for Seattle.
And here’s something else odd. The issue is subtitled, "how to make the most of your ozone-free summer." This is a strange kicker because ozone depletion isn’t the same as the greenhouse effect or global warming. It’s related in some fairly complicated ways but, if anything, ozone depletion actually cools the planet. But, hey, you know, it’s all so darn funny that there’s no reason to bother understanding global warming.
UPDATE: I did a bit of re-writing and re-organizing here. I think my self-righteous indignation was an impediment to clarity in the first draft. Clarity added, self-righteous indignation intact.
