The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I’m about as anachronistic as any old geezer I know. I hate newfangled gizmos so much that can track my every move, my every purchase, my every tweet, my every everything, it almost makes me a certified Luddite. I don’t want a cellphone attached 24/7 to my person, I don’t want a refrigerator I can adjust the temperature with the cellphone I don’t own, I object to GPS devices in my truck, my car, the mizzus’ laptop or the baby carriage. Don’t want surveillance cameras monitoring the shack. I don’t want to be on Facebook or Instagram or any other social media platform to keep myself informed about conformity. I don’t watch Fox News or MSNBC for my ‘news’, I just buy a couple of newspapers. I don’t plan to be an integral cog of the Borg Hive. Just sayin.

But … I do think the folks who believe coal is coming back, that fracking is perfectly safe, that oil will power our future, well, these folks are the real anachronists. These folks who lobby for pipelines and more refineries, who pine for regulations that allow car companies to lower MPG’s, who think global warming is liberal bullshit, who love the Drill Baby Drill rant and think we should keep burning fossil fuel until the last oil drum is hauled up out of the earth, these folks make me look like a visitor from the future.

Somebody needs to give them the news: the planet is warming up, buddy, and that ain’t fake news. I get it, you don’t want to drive an electric car. You don’t want to use the sun to power your entertainment center. You don’t like the look of wind farms and you don’t care for tidal generators. You like gas, check. You like a car that pollutes, check. You think ‘clean coal’ is ready for a breakthrough, double check. You think natural gas power plants are the future, bingo. You believe what you hear from the GOP, that climate change is a hoax and all those scientists are wrong, happy days for you!

Wake up, pal, the future is calling you on your cellphone. Your kids are starting to sweat, just in case you didn’t notice. They think maybe something needs to be done and done pretty quick. Check your engine light, pardner, the one blinking red on the dashboard. It’s time for more than an oil change. It’s time for a complete overhaul. Wrap your pointy little head around it, the revolution is coming.

Scientists ( you remember those guyz, the folks we used to trust before we stopped using Reason) announced today that this July was the hottest month on record. At the same time the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, came out with its recommendations to deregulate the EPA, the Department of the Interior and any other agency that wants to use its power to tackle global warming. A spokesperson said they weren’t denying climate change, just wanted to make sure we don’t over-reach on putting the brakes on fossil fuel usage, might hurt the economy. In Texas, in the midst of a month of hundred plus degree days, their legislature wants to halt further wind and solar alternatives for energy production, arguing that these were unreliable. No doubt the sun stops shining in the Lone Star state during those hot summer months and only fossil fuel power plants can deliver air conditioning electricity.

If fossil fuel is the answer, give the Earth a few million years and these Republican science deniers can have their remains mined and used to power the grids of whoever is left on this planet. Phoenix set a record for over a month of 110 plus degree days recently and is now working on the next month’s. One Republican legislator scoffed at the notion that science could even know if we’re the hottest we’ve ever been in the last 100,000 years. Who was there to record the temperature back then, he wanted to know. Right. Couldn’t use anything but direct observation. Must be bullshit. Although … well over half of us believe in angels.

This might be mildly amusing … except that we’re talking about an existential threat to humanity that seems to be coming on faster even than our scientists projected. The Heritage Foundation has a plan, thank god. Course, their plan is to slow down doing anything about trying to mitigate climate change. What’s the hurry, their spokeswoman said, she who was EPA head under Trump. The fires are burning unchecked in Canada, floods are more severe on the east coast, heat waves are sweltering Europe and India and China, glaciers are melting and sea ice is going away.

Maybe the Heritage Foundation and their Republican clients are right, just turn the thermostat up for the air conditioning to cool us down. My advice to you kids out there: move north as far as you can. While you still can.