|
Archives
A Letterby John J. Fanning
Dear Al,
Just got in from shoveling the sidewalk and snow blowing the driveway “again” and
thought I’d drop you a line to see if there might just be some change going
on with this whole man-made global warming thing that you’d like to clue
me in on.
Last year when we got all that snow and the bitter cold, you said it was
just a freaky winter thing and we’d soon be frying eggs on Chicago streets
in January. But I have to tell you Al, it’s January and I think we’re
freezing our asses off up here in the Midwest. I can’t really tell
for sure cause the snow is so deep it’s actually keeping me from seeing
my own ass. But I gotta tell you Al, this Spring – if there is a Spring
- when the snow melts and feeling returns to our bodies, I won’t be
at all surprised to see people having trouble keeping their pants from just
falling down around their ankles.
Now listen, Al, I don’t want you to think that I’m expressing
any doubts about you or man-made global warming here. I’m certainly not
one of those damnable right-wing Fascist types that go around listening to
scientific
facts and logic and all that other garbage being spread by “Doubters”.
Hell, anyone who has taken the time to see Ironman or Transformers knows we
humans have it within us to destroy the whole solar system! It’s just
that I need to know how to respond to family, friends and neighbors who get upset
with me cause I’m trying really hard to cool down
our planet.
You might recall from an earlier letter how the neighbors had me arrested
for shooting out their incandescent outdoor lighting? Well I was wondering
if you
knew of any type of energy saving outdoor lighting that might work in temperatures
lower than ten-below zero? I was out snow blowing the other night and the compact
fluorescents I use outside just wouldn’t turn on in the freezing temperatures.
It wouldn’t have been such a big deal if the neighbor’s dog had
just moved out of the way or barked or something.
Anyway, as part of the legal settlement, I have to put some type of lighting
outside that actually works in the cold weather. Got any suggestions?
You know, Al, I got a letter from some friends last week that went on vacation
to Las Vegas. Well, actually, it wasn’t much of a letter. It was just
a picture of them standing on the Vegas Strip in four-inches of snow. The back
of the photo just had the word, “Loser” written on
it. I’m not real certain
exactly what they meant,
but I suspect it might
have something to do
with the snow in the
picture. You might
not know this Al,
cause I just found out
myself, but it doesn’t really snow that often in Las Vegas.
My friends were initially going to fly to Las Vegas, but I talked them into
taking a train because it has a lower carbon footprint. Unfortunately, blizzard
conditions and twelve-feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada’s kept their
train stranded for a few days. So I was especially glad they at least had those
three hours in Las Vegas to experience the oddity of the snowfall before they
had to head back home.
Anyway Al, I was wondering if you could explain to me how global warming
caused the blizzard in the mountains and the snowfall in Las Vegas, so that
I can
leave that information on their answering machine and maybe they might talk
to me again.
I want you to know, Al, that I came across something on the Internet about
the inactivity of sunspots and some crazy guy with a bunch of letters behind
his name wrote some obviously phony scientific paper about how low sunspot
activity causes the Earth
to cool and that the global warming we have experienced was actually from high
sunspot activity we had previously experienced. Anyway, I want you to know
that when some of what I was reading started to make sense, I stopped reading
immediately, like you taught us to do, and wrote a letter to the FCC demanding
that the website be blocked.
I thought that was the end of such nonsense, but then I heard voices on the
radio and started to see articles in the newspaper where “Doubters” were
again making trouble.
On January 13th, the Chicago Tribune printed a story by Laurie Goering, a
London correspondent. Goering was writing about how unusually cold it is again
this
year throughout Europe. Anyway, in the story Goering quotes Tom Skilling, the
Tribune and WGN television Meteorologist as saying that he has a “research” department
and that graphs he has show “we’re cycling back into an era of
a little more snow.”
Now I did just like I think you would
want and wrote several anonymous letters to Skilling, “warning” him
that this kind of talk would find him with a career move, taking pies to the
face on WGN’s Bozo set, if he didn’t straighten up and fly right!
I know how much you frown on people doing independent research and I told
Skilling that your Global Warming PowerPoint presentation was available for
downloading
on the Internet and reminded him that this was the only research needed by
anyone wishing to discuss the subject.
I signed each letter, “From A Well Meaning Friend”
So anyway Al, I really didn’t want to bother you but I heard that you
were taking a short break on your houseboat down in Tennessee before flying
back to Washington to advise the new administration on ways to save the planet,
improve the Internet, reinvent a global economic system, and cure teenage acne.
So I thought I would write and ask you for some advice on how we should handle
these global warming things that seem to be unraveling. I mean even the Russian
press
is writing stories about our
entering some Ice Age!
Al, any advice you can
give would be, as
always, greatly
appreciated. And
this time I promise to
be more careful when carrying out some of your ideas. I certainly learned
my lesson from that silly campaign of mine, setting those plastic bags on
fire
in the shopping carts of people leaving the grocery store! Like I said in
the plea agreement, I regret any pain and suffering I may have caused. But
dog
gone it, Al, that little stunt may have saved a polar bear or two!
I look forward to your help and advice, Al.
Your friend
John
Archives
|
