The Answer to Global Warming
A "modest proposal" to cure what ails the earth.
Driving back from Deming one sunny afternoon, I started cogitating on the sea of greenery stretching for miles on either side of the highway; tall gramma and side-oat grasses topped with seeds just turning brown undulated gently in the breezes. Aaah, it was good to see the results of so much rainfall.
Ironically, the radio was blaring, and some unknown speaker was droning on still once more on drastic changes occurring to our planet as a result of global warming.
I started chuckling at what he was saying, since the proponents of global warming had long insisted that our long-standing drought here in the Southwest was a direct result of the warming. Yet here we were enjoying the wettest summer that even old-timers had trouble grasping; it was the wettest summer in memory.
Those same global-warming soothsayers of doom had also long prognosticated that we would see ever-increasing severe hurricane and tornado seasons. Yet neither had come to fruition this summer or fall. I think we had one category-one storm hit the mainland all season, with minimal damage.
So much for all of these theories. They're as wet as this past summer season has been!
No one would deny that our planet is in the throes of unusual warming. But what scientists can't agree on is what is causing it, and they seem to be evenly divided. Fifty percent of reports say that this trend is a normal cyclic occurrence that happens every eon or so, while the other 50 percent or so say that this is a new, never-before-seen event brought on by industrialization in various forms, the greatest cause of which is the burning of fossil fuels.
As I drove on, I began pondering this latter opinion and asking myself: What if these latterday doomsayers were indeed correct? What could truly be done about it? What was really causing it, and what could be done to reverse it?
Well, I cogitated some more and pretty quickly came to some conclusions. Humans were the cause—period—and to solve the problem, we just needed to get rid of a whole passel of them! Say what?
Here's my "solution." We inhabitants need to revert to a nomadic, hunter-gatherer-barterer society on each and every continent. To accomplish this goal, we need to reduce the entire earth's population by, oh, about 85 percent.
Then we wouldn't need government any longer because family-based clans would re-emerge. Nor would we need industrialization any more or commerce and all of its attendant pollutions. Cities, towns and villages could be flattened along with every fence-line, since everyone would live a nomadic existence.
Oh, it'd be okay if the remaining existing resources would be utilized until they ceased to be useful or depleted, which would take a decade or two. Autos would be abandoned and foot and horse power would become modes of transportation anew.
As hunter-gatherer-barterers, there would now be room for both meat-eaters and the veggie-eating crowd, depending on whether a clan or individual chose to hunt, farm or gather.
Occasionally, as folks encountered one another, they could barter for things needed. Thus there would no longer be a need for money, gold and diamonds, or the love of them!
I then pondered that in a decade or three, the ol' earth would be in fine shape once again. With so few folks inhabiting it, harmful emissions would vanish, and since there would be no need for permanent, new housing, trees in third world countries (and here, too) would no longer vanish.
Survival-of–the-fittest would reign supreme once more, as we and all domesticated critters (except for the occasional dog and cat) roamed free without the inhibition of fences or borders as God and His nature intended.
But the big question that looms over this entire argument is what do we do with all of the current people? Simple once again.
I recall a long-ago movie about a future society with too many humans; every "old" person voluntarily walked into a death chamber when he or she reached a certain age. Voila!
Well, I wouldn't single out just us old dudes and dudettes. Since our society is increasingly becoming fond of gambling and the lotteries, we'd just establish a worldwide lottery for every being from the age of one day on up to "ancientism." If your number is drawn, well, you get eliminated. Fair play all around!
Of course, to get back to reality, I'm not one who believes that humans are the main cause of global warming. Rather, I agree with the supposition that it is a natural occurrence that happens every so often, and that the earth will somehow reverse the effects and heal itself.
I base this loosely on the last doomsday predictions of the 1980s, where folks were claiming the "sky is falling" with the ozone layer and the holes in it, supposedly caused by pollutants also. I've since read reports that these large holes in the ozone have healed themselves for reasons we do not understand. Go figure.
Of course, my solution is tongue-in-cheek and neither moral or realistic. My point in all of this is that if industrialization is indeed the culprit for our global woes, only a drastic decrease in human population will correct the problem. Everything else is a Band-Aid.
As always, keep the sun forever at your back, the wind forever in your
face, and may the Forever God bless you.
Larry Lightner writes Ramblin' Outdoors
exclusively for Desert Exposure.