Monday, January 12, 2004
As I sit here in January in 72-degree I-could-eat-outside-in-shorts weather in Southern California, I'm reminded of an article I read just this last summer while I was in Montana. It was unseasonably hot in Missoula while I was there... in the 100s for what seemed like weeks... and the editors of the local paper, The Missoulian, felt sort of a kinship with the tens of thousands of people dying of heat in western Europe. So they reported on this freak heat wave with the kind of passionate coverage usually reserved for fly fishing tips or forest service bulletins.
One particularly hot day, I picked up the paper to read an article about the heatwave and happened to catch an interesting, albeit casually-reported quote buried deep in the center of the piece. It said that experts were attributing the recent heat wave to a "shift in the earth's meteorological equator." If you don't speak meteorology, let me translate: A shift in the earth's meteorological equator means that weather that used to belong to Africa will now belong to Europe, and vice versa.
I checked online and found that, indeed, this assessment was pretty universal and most of the earth's experts were predicting that throughout the next few decades, summers in Europe will continue to become more and more blazingly hot, while Africa will suffer surprise cold snaps in its winter.
Interesting, right? I'm just wondering one thing: Am I the only person who's scared shitless by this quote?
First of all, there are the small things. Hot tea, someday, will become all but useless in England, depriving Britons everywhere of the only thing that actually stimulated any sort of communication between them. Plus, the formerly pasty Brits will no longer have to fly to LA for a good, warm tan, depriving us of their tourist dollars. And how about Africa? You know that song "Do They Know It's Christmas" where they talk about African residents not knowing it's Christmas because it's not snowing? Gone... a relic of a past where Africa was not faced with howling winter winds and snow shovels. I can just picture the Peace Corps calling all Montanans to "come and teach your African brothers and sisters how to keep their sidewalks free of snow."
But it's really the bigger issue that worries me most. A shift in the meteorological equator is like Superman talk. Like Lex Luther succeeded in doing something horrible to increase the property value of his land in upper Africa. This is the stuff of serious sci fi... something that indicates the things we previously considered to be facts, are, in fact, not so. Africa may someday be cold in the winter, and England's green hills may someday dry into crispy, arid fields.
Of course, there's something we can all do about it. Scientists everywhere are issuing a collective "I told you so" to the world's policy makers about ozone-depleting chemicals and pollution. We can and should stand up and fight for our world. And I will. But first, I need some tea.
"Oh God, We're All Going To Die"
One particularly hot day, I picked up the paper to read an article about the heatwave and happened to catch an interesting, albeit casually-reported quote buried deep in the center of the piece. It said that experts were attributing the recent heat wave to a "shift in the earth's meteorological equator." If you don't speak meteorology, let me translate: A shift in the earth's meteorological equator means that weather that used to belong to Africa will now belong to Europe, and vice versa.
I checked online and found that, indeed, this assessment was pretty universal and most of the earth's experts were predicting that throughout the next few decades, summers in Europe will continue to become more and more blazingly hot, while Africa will suffer surprise cold snaps in its winter.
Interesting, right? I'm just wondering one thing: Am I the only person who's scared shitless by this quote?
First of all, there are the small things. Hot tea, someday, will become all but useless in England, depriving Britons everywhere of the only thing that actually stimulated any sort of communication between them. Plus, the formerly pasty Brits will no longer have to fly to LA for a good, warm tan, depriving us of their tourist dollars. And how about Africa? You know that song "Do They Know It's Christmas" where they talk about African residents not knowing it's Christmas because it's not snowing? Gone... a relic of a past where Africa was not faced with howling winter winds and snow shovels. I can just picture the Peace Corps calling all Montanans to "come and teach your African brothers and sisters how to keep their sidewalks free of snow."
But it's really the bigger issue that worries me most. A shift in the meteorological equator is like Superman talk. Like Lex Luther succeeded in doing something horrible to increase the property value of his land in upper Africa. This is the stuff of serious sci fi... something that indicates the things we previously considered to be facts, are, in fact, not so. Africa may someday be cold in the winter, and England's green hills may someday dry into crispy, arid fields.
Of course, there's something we can all do about it. Scientists everywhere are issuing a collective "I told you so" to the world's policy makers about ozone-depleting chemicals and pollution. We can and should stand up and fight for our world. And I will. But first, I need some tea.
"Oh God, We're All Going To Die"
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