OMG! All the little froggies are dying world wide! It’s all caused by evil, greedy humans destroying habitat, the ozone layer and causing climate change! Oh, wait, they’re dying because of fungus plague spread by migrating waterfowl? Never mind, stop shooting the 3rd world charcoal makers. Turns out they’re not to blame…this time… we’ll get them on something else next month.
Still we need to do something for the little froggies! After all, how do we know that some obscure amphibian species in an isolated valley somewhere isn’t the linchpin species for the entire planetary ecosystem? Frankly, the biosphere is so incredibly fragile that it’s amazing it’s survived 3.5 billion years at all. Obviously, we need to completely reengineer the planetary economy based on the pronouncements of the heartthrob of the poli-sci department or everything, everywhere will die!
Hmmm, what kind of environmental conditions do amphibians like? Oh, yeah, they like it warmer and wetter. How could we make things warmer and wetter everywhere? Wait, don’t most of the absolutely-proven-without-a-doubt-just-because-climatologists-are-so-confident-they-don’t-actually-have-to-test-computer-models-against-real-world-observations computer models predict that increasing CO2 concentrations will lead to significantly warmer and wetter conditions virtually everywhere?
That’s it! To save the froggies all we have to do is increase our CO2 output. With hard work and massive government regulation and subsidies we could turn the whole planet into a froggy-friendly swamp within a few decades.
Write your elected representative and demand we spend hundreds of billions every year burning every carbon containing compound on the planet. If you don’t, it means you’re an ignorant racist who hates absolutely every living thing everywhere!
No, no, we need to spend obscene amounts of money lifting up lenses to concentrate sunlight to increase our temperature (at a cost far higher than burning all that nasty carbon). It’s the ultimate in solar energy and wouldn’t fracture the Democrat coalition (got to keep a focus on what’s important, right?).
TMLutas,
Burn coal dammit! Why do you hate the frogs so much?
The other day there was this rerun of Everyone Loves Raymondand in it the brother, Robert, falls for this woman who seems totally amazing. Until his brother Raymond catches her eating a fly.
Later in the episode, Robert finds out that she has a bedroom full of frogs in little glass aquariums and she thinks, “we all come from frogs you know.”
Turns out, as attractive as she was, she had “froggie” issues.
– Madhu
(I like sitcoms – yeah, I know – and I like the ensemble crazy of that television family.)
Oops, I think it’s Everybody Loves Raymond.
– Madhu