Global Warming: We Should Be So Lucky

Here's my latest column from the Scribe (actually, it hasn't even been printed yet. Aren't you lucky?):

With all the partisan bickering over global warming, some people simply refuse to raise the issue in public for fear of causing a swell of politically slanted name-calling.

I, for one, love to see and hear people argue, so I’m submitting this column in hopes that I’ll get to see a Bush-voting, NASCAR-watching, racist, fascist Republican get into a fistfight with a hippie, non-bathing, baby-aborting, war-protesting, cowardly Democrat. That would just make my day.

It seems as though everyone is too busy debating over whether or not the globe is, in fact, warming, and they’re not nearly as sharply focused on a much more basic issue: So what? Before we get all angry and start throwing punches at each other, shouldn’t we first examine the issue of whether or not we give a crap about a warmer environment?

OK, so maybe what I just said wasn’t exactly “politically correct,” or whatever, but I think it’s an important question, nonetheless. I posit that global warming can actually be a good thing.

Now before you stop reading, I’d like to remind you to please keep an open mind.

Let’s think about the long-term effects of global warming. The first is obvious: warmer weather. Who doesn’t like wearing shorts? No one, that’s who. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not too crazy about the cold weather we’d been having a couple weeks ago. It’s been nice lately. I love walking around barefoot, and I can’t do that when there’s a risk of my feet freezing directly to the ground. Thank you, global warming.

Another supposedly “bad” effect of global warming would be a rise in ocean water. That’s a good thing, too. Think about it. As the saying goes, “Buy land; they aren’t making any more of it.”

If the ocean were to swallow up a bunch of land along our coastline, then it makes the remaining land just a little bit more valuable. Plus, it’s a well-known fact that most people who live near the coasts are cheaters and rapists. Why would anyone want to allow a rapist to live in a nice beach house?

People will be so excited about the increase in their property value, they won’t have time to grieve for the loss of a few pretentious beach houses.

Everyone who wasn’t wealthy enough to own beachfront property will eventually get their own piece of slightly-more-valuable land. Sounds like a good thing to me. Maybe all those rich people with their fancy cars and indentured servants will get to eat their own great big piece of humble pie when their snooty, well-lit homes are swallowed by the unforgiving sea.

Yet another effect of global warming is the loss of certain species of animals whose homes, the barren wastelands on the north and south poles, will be ravaged by melting polar ice. Boo-hoo. If you’re an animal and your delicious carcass can’t be served at a fast food restaurant with some sort of dipping sauce, then I don’t care if you live or die.

Here’s something to think about: maybe instead of building more hybrid vehicles (whose batteries are quite bad for the environment and are made from aborted fetuses), we should all be spraying aerosol cans into the air, running our SUVs 24 hours a day, barbecuing for dinner every night, burning Styrofoam cups and looking for penguins to kill and fry.

Those are just the first steps toward a brave new world filled with nonstop beach parties, homeless millionaires, cities that are actually hospitable in the winter, things to do in Canada other than ice fishing, no more rapists, Siberians who love us and a new restaurant chain called Kentucky Fried Penguin.

That sounds like heaven to me. That’s the America I want to live in. I’m gonna go barbecue something.