Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Monday, April 25, 2005
Rush to judgment on global warming?
BIG JOHN - part 1
When I lived on Queen Anne, in Seattle, I spent a lot of time with a guy named Big John. Big John was about 6’4”, 240lbs. He was very bright but moved slowly and spoke slowly in a very deep voice. He was a very highly skilled cabinet maker who used his free time to hike and read books on math, physics and meteorology. I liked to trade punches to the shoulder with him. When I’d get hit, I’d actually fly for a moment: I’d feel like a little kid who’d been launched on a carnival ride.Big John had unusual perspectives on things. For example, one day we were walking past some city workers who were digging, deep in a trench, to change some big water pipes. I said to big John: “Wow, can you imagine doing that all day?” Big John said: “Oh, I don’t know - I like digging…” He lives on a homestead in Montana, now. I miss him.
I enjoyed Big John’s perspectives. He’d often get mad about all the attention given to the destruction of the rain forests in Brazil. He’d say, slowly: “I know they’re important. But, hell, why do people have to spend all their time thinking about stuff that’s five thousand miles away? We’ve got real, honest-to-goodness rain forests right here in Washington! Heck, we could leave now and get there before lunch. W-e-l-l - we’d have to pack some food. But we could! These are OUR rainforests getting destroyed and nobody seems to care. People are too stupid to realize their own back yard is important, too…”
I call on the wisdom of Big John, here, because he was fascinated by weather. Sometimes we’d all be stoned down at Lucia’s Diner, talking about the Spanish Anarchists, or something, and when we’d leave, perhaps we’d feel a blast of wind. Big John would look up into the sky and describe what he thought was actually taking place, meteorologically. Great stuff. Especially when you’re stoned. Big John didn’t know what to say about Global Warming. He’d drawl in his deepest, most anguished voice: “W-e-l-l-l… I don’t know. Hell, they don’t know so much about the weather. How long have they been keeping records - less than two hundred years, mostly, ain’t it? How much can THAT tell them? There might be climate changes that last hundreds of thousands of years, just more or less naturally! How could we know?”
Just when I’d think to object ( remember, I’m still a bit stoned ), Big John would say: “And what difference does it make? They say this global warming is caused by internal combustion engines - cars and trucks - and from factory emissions and stuff, right? W-e-l-l-l… any five year old knows that that stuff is bad. Just take a walk through downtown Seattle at rush hour - you can hardly breathe! Or look at pictures of the air above Los Angeles or New York. Hell, the air is brownish-yellow. Do you have to be a genius to know that brownish-yellow air is not good for you? Do you have to refer to data about global warming to know that air that has any color at all is probably going to kill you? All these jerks are making laws about cigarette smoking. Heck, one car driven about a mile will destroy more breathable air than a dozen chain smokers will in a month! So, the lawmakers pass their laws, then get into their big SUV’s or their limos, and cruise home, destroying oceans of air, while feeling good about themselves.”
“And what about the factory smoke? Is that good for people or bad for people? Do we need to wait for the climate-change modeling, before we figure that one out? Factory smoke from the Midwest is blowing to the east coast and it’s causing acid rain. Hell, half of the lakes and ponds - maybe more than half - in the Adirondack Mountains are DEAD! They’re just DEAD! This beautiful, gigantic natural area, and they’re murdering it! Tens of thousands of trees are dying or dead. Jesus, the whole damned ecosystem is fucked up. Isn’t that enough evidence? And, it’s probably NOT only factory smoke. It’s probably car and truck emissions, too. It all blows from west to east. I bet you its car exhaust, too! All this shit is terrible! If you could communicate with a mollusk, you’d find that even mollusks know it’s terrible. We don’t have to argue that the planet is heating up… It’s just another really good argument about doing what we already know we MUST do.”
Posted by joe carpenter on from Grants Pass, Oregon 04/25 at 04:37 PMBIG JOHN - PART 2
Interesting perspectives, eh? Now, do -I- believe that Global Warming is a fact? Absolutely. It seems to me that the evidence is clear. And, a whole gaggle of heavy-weight scientists seem to believe so, too. (Not that science doesn’t almost always serve Capital - but, perhaps this is an exception…) However, Big John is right. In any case, we know what the problem is. And, isn’t this a great moment in history to address the problems of the internal combustion engine, and the use of fossil fuels in general?
Aren’t we, right now, in the time of peak oil? Maybe this very moment, earth’s supply of oil is peaking. A moment later, we’re running out. And every barrel, from then on, is harder to extract. Some hot-shot analyst from the Bank Of Montreal said he believes that the major oil field in Saudi Arabia has already peaked. He says they’re pumping water into wells in every oil field in the country. They call this the “Viagra of Aging Wells.” If Saudi oil has peaked already, so has the world.
Read the Olduvai theory of human civilization, by a geologist or geophysicist named Richard Duncan, It’s all over the web. Imagine what happens once it sinks in to the Future’s and Commodities markets that we’re running out of oil! We won’t be writing on Mickey Z.’s comment board. We won’t be able to afford the electricity to run our computers. And, in any case, electricity will be so costly, Mickey and most of Astoria will freeze to death that very next winter - if they haven’t starved to death because truckers won’t be able to afford to run their rigs from the farms into the city. The entire Northeastern United States could be dead or dying before the planet really starts to heat up and glow…
So, why not find solutions to the use of oil - right now? Right now! Shut down most of the trillion or so automobiles and trucks in the U.S. for a while and we’d save an incredible amount of oil. Shut things down globally and the oil could last for centuries. Yes, I know - I should pray to the tooth fairy or check in to a psych unit for a while. And, yup, I know I’m stating the obvious.
But, somehow, we’ve got to find alternatives to gasoline. We could, I think, if we realized how incredibly important it is that we do so. Instead, we’re spending a zillion barrels a day to take over the world’s remaining oil fields so we can #### the whole planet in the ass, and keep the Oil People - and the governments which love them - fat and rich and powerful forever. ( Or, maybe most of a generation…) They can count the money while living in those vast, opulent underground city-bunkers they’re building for themselves - with our money…
You know we could find wonderful alternatives if it became a national priority to do so. An old friend of mine said he’d like to try to put a windmill on his car and run it from the electricity made from it’s motion. Just driving the car would create wind which would… well, you get it.
Every person in the world has at least one goofy idea - many of which might work. Some of them would work remarkably well.
We could eliminate many of the causes of global warming and save Mickey Z.’s comment board, Mickey Z. and his family, and all of Astoria in one great swoop. I’m ordering some buttons and bumper stickers: “Save Mickey Z.” It’s what Big John would want us to do, and it’s right!W-e-l-l-l it’s now, or perhaps - never…, eh? Yet, I fear that Big John and I are both just preaching to the choir…
Posted by joe carpenter on from Grants Pass, Oregon 04/25 at 04:39 PMThanks, Joe. But can’t comment now...I’m heading out to buy heavy blankets.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 04/25 at 05:08 PMJoe, great comment! I would love to see it performed on a city sidewalk, and maybe open a few more eyes/brains. Well...maybe not “performed” per se. How about a street corner “story time for adults”...
Re: windmills on cars...I belong to an RV forum and came across a fellow who is putting a windmill on an RV.
My husband and I are selling home and 2.65 acres to buy an RV and run it on biodiesel, heated with solar. I see the changes coming, and yes I’m scrambling to do something now. Hopefully our version of something will help the planet in more ways than one.
Thanks for the comment and the post Joe & MickeyZ.
P.S. Our home needs a green buyer who can afford new technologies to make it energy efficient. We are in a more-than-prime location (very rural but accessible). Interested?
Posted by deb on from Seattle-ish 04/27 at 12:11 PMMore proof that global warming is real: it is autumn in Australia at the moment, and I just heard on the radio that the last two months were the warmest since they started keeping records.
Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 05/02 at 10:50 PM
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