This is Vin Scully and Wharf (Horses of the Apocalypse) Rat, coming to you live and direct from the Park Formerly Known as Candlestick. It's the 7th and final game of the World Serious, and we're moving into the bottom of the 9th.
This could be it for Mother Nature. She trails badly, having been knocked around severely by Mankind in the last few innings, but she comes to the plate proudly, like the defending champ she is. Her first batter, Katrina, got hit by an inside curve thrown by starting pitcher Exxon Valdez. Now, shortstop Carbon' Concentracion stares down at third base coach Hit Away to get the sign."
Yeah, Nature finally gets her at bat. Peak oil/global warming. Can't solve one without the other, maybe can't solve either til it's too late. But it's reached the point where we literally have to go to war with Mother Nature (altho, we need a judo approach; use her momentum and her nuclear powered Sun to throw her over), and we have to approach it with a World War 2 mentality. No more of "Vietnam/Kuwait/Iraq is a war". Those weren't wars. Those were just our soldiers fighting. Nobody felt anything, other than that. Not meaning to minimize those feelings, but nobody was involved in the effort to fight that war, other than our troops. But WW2 was a war, with everybody involved, against unremitting hostile foes, involving everybody. Ration coupons, Victory Gardens, recycling drives, Rosie the Riveter, spy vs spy, Detroit making tanks, Kaiser making Victory Ships, Manhattan
project.. Everybody involved. Doing, planning, and especially thinking, of ways to help. That's where we are now with these 2 problems. It's gonna take a global war against it, and we have to be the leaders, cuz we have the most to lose, and the most to gain, and we are the biggest contributers. We need to be selling environmentally friendly stuff to China instead of buying WallyWhirled plastics. We need people to put in compact fluorescents, and then help those who can barely make ends meet, to switch, too; and sell them to China.
There is no one answer, there is no one way. We just need the will to do it. And here, that can't be done without the feds. It doesn't matter where Cal and Mass set their emission standards, or who sues the government to regulate CO2, it's gonna take federal leadership.
Like maybe end all the subsidies to big energy, put the money into Detroit to put out the most efficient car in the world, even if they have to buy Japanese engines, replace the entire federal fleet, and then start giving them to us, cuz most of us couldn't afford them, probably. Gets the auto industry going again, gets emissions down. Use that money to build the infrastructure for solar, starting with silicon, itself. Use empty factories, put people back to work, get energy up and emissions down. Get electric rail going. Get a wind industry going. All it takes is the political will.
Everybody will have to give some. The Kennedys will have to give on windmills off the Cape. Some people may have to give up the pleasure of working 5/40 work weeks in exchange for a 4/40 or 3/36. I may to to give Sioux a nuke.
People are gonna have to feel thay have to give up their Hummers as a matter of patriotism.
Cuz we are running out of time. I'd really like to be wrong. I have a vested interest in being wrong, eg my 3 Rats and the little Rug Rat. I wish I was. I'm afraid I'm not.
Rat Ranting |
