Fire or ice?

If I recall, T.S. Eliot once wrote a poem about the earth ending in fire or ice, but he didn't actually settle on one or the other. I suggest that T.S. (who also broadcast Lord HawHaw-type radio messages for the fascists during WWII) pick one. And today's environmentalists would do well to do so, too.

Apparently it's the time of year when all kinds of lunatic dictators from 3rd World nations descend upon New York City like a plague of locusts and advise the USA on exactly what we're doing wrong. My mom would say, "Consider the source."

Be that as it may, a Mr. Eva Morales of Bolivia, who has a really interesting face, but I have no idea what his position is, told reporters that the US isn't doing anything to help his nation "save humanity." Furthermore, he's not blaming US citizens for this, rather, it's because we we labor under the misdirection of capitalism.

Should we remind him that for decades, the USA somehow managed to soak up all the coca his nation could produce? And illegally. US citizens are actually quite innovative in this respect. And since it's an illegal trade, it's totally capitalist and not even taxed. Bolivia got pretty rich off of this via several really murderous cartels which, nonetheless, built schools and hospitals and won public support for a time. Kinda like Hammas in the Middle East. Mr. Morales may be too young to remember the days before Bolivia went green for the good of all humankind.

Oh well. His reference to "saving humanity" was about environmentalism. The new "black" in terms of global social justice projects.

Almost simultaneously, I heard news that some hotshot U.N. scientist, who's apparently a committed believer in climate change, has announced that the earth is no longer heating, but cooling again. It may be cooling for another few years, and then will go back to warming. I guess he finally got finished double-checking the data real scientists have been collecting for the last 10 years and decided he couldn't make up excuses about it anymore. Yup. It's cooling.

(We had maybe five days above 80 degrees in Chicago this summer; and it snowed in Colorado today, Sept. 22. Kinda hard to keep harping on the warming thing, huh?)

Or maybe he's been checking out the sun spots. There have been remarkably few sun spots over the last 18 months or so. And there is some correlation between sun spots and heating on earth, with a delay of some time -- a couple months or so -- while the solar flare or whatever it is travels through space.

But anyway, what could this possibly mean in terms of actual policy? Shall we prepare for global warming or global cooling? I mean, do we all go out and buy parkas or bathing suits, anticipating the future of the planet? Move toward the equator to avoid turning into popsicles, or to the Rockies to escape the boiling seas? Do we reduce carbon emissions or increase them? And what if we get it wrong and send the whole world spinning out of kilter with the miniscule results we might produce?

Muammar Kadaffy may have the right idea: simply bring a tent with you wherever you go: New Jersey, Central Park, etc. Where has he been? Haven't seen or heard from him since Reagan blew an earlier tent of his all to hell about 30 years ago. I guess Kadaffy's heard about the Comrade and reckons it's safe to travel again.

Anyway, about climate change, make up your minds, dudes.

People actually have been tracking temperature in various locations on the earth for a long, long time. Like, for centuries. World temperatures fluctuate over time. It's rather cyclical and no one entirely understands it. The shifts seem to result from a variety of different influences, including things like volcanoes, meteor strikes maybe. Cold breeds cold because when the ground is white with snow and ice, it repels heat. Isn't that why that silly czar has suggested we paint our roofs white? That man has never lived through winter on the northern plains, I guarantee.

We can't control the climate. There's not a damn thing we can do about it, not even with monumentally expensive legislation that will ruin US industry and propel us all back to the use of whale oil and candles. Well, maybe not whale oil, unless you want to get into a big bruhaha with GreenPeace.

In Chicago, we have saying that goes, "If you don't like the weather, stick around. It'll change."

Apparently this applies to most of the rest of the world as well.

It's really kinda sad to abandon a mission like "saving humanity," though. One alternative might be encouraging international capitalist trade in a legal way. That would help save humanity. It's worked better than anything else so far.

Iran's Abracadabrajab takes the podium tomorrow. That should be fun. He can provide us with estimates about the impact of nuclear radiation leaks and/or of exploded atom bombs on the environment -- a subject he embraces with wild-eyed fanaticism.

And yet another segment of the population is just running up their credit cards and staying stoned, waiting for the world to end in 2012. The Mayans promised.

'Course, I remember when everything was supposed to vaporize when the clocks turned over -- or didn't -- at the stroke of midnight, year 2000.

Increasingly, life on earth is taking on the dimensions of a never-ending horror film. But, hey, don't worry. It's only fiction.