FEB. 27, 2007

Inconvenient statistical extrapolation (aka “truth”) has it that the remaining ice caps will calve and melt into the sea sometime soon. Bummer for penguins and polar bears, but does our blue Earth cocktail really need an ice floater? Not necessarily. In fact, if the entire population of mainland China started driving Hummers, hairspraying their black moptops into rock hard beehives, and farting copious amounts of cabbagey methane into the atmosphere, the world would still keep on spinning. It might be hotter, wetter, and arguably smellier, but life would go on – or at the very least some fairly complex amino acids. It’s even possible humans might survive the ensuing cataclysm, but they would probably need to mutate up some gills and fins chop chop – or maybe a nice set of flippers and a blow-hole. Of course, you would think that once a few hundred square miles of polar ice shelf slides into the drink, governments would get serious about putting the kibosh on carbon dioxide emissions. So much for the Chinese and their Hummers and hairspray. They would have to be satisfied with the old-school hummer, the resultant emissions of which, ironically, can be used to create something of an up do, though maybe not a full on beehive. More old-school hummers might also curb China’s population growth. Talk about a win-win scenario for environmentalists. With enticements like that, it’s a safe assumption that the Chinese would be back on their bicycles in no time. Americans however, are a little more pigheaded – our legislators tend not to trust any science that doesn’t come straight from the Bible, which means the global warming issue is queued up somewhere between Federally Funded Universal Health Care and Transportation Strategies for the Rapture on the congressional agenda. Still, once Baytown and Pasadena are a couple of fathoms below sea level and millions of chain-smoking Houstonian refugees are roaming the heartland looking for cheap modular housing, DayGlo beach wear, and tittie bars, there is bound to be some activity in the chambers, if only to shit the proverbial brick. So, where’s the bright side? Here’s one: It’s possible that your roach-trap rent house on Montopolis might someday be oceanfront real estate. If that doesn’t make you want to put beans in your chili and a dual exhaust package on your Suburban, nothing will. In the short term however, there’s a good chance the winds will be picking up considerably, which should make for some nice kite flying – just in time for this Sunday’s 79th Zilker Park Kite Festival. If you’re too obsessed with the impending apocalypse to engage in some thing as frivolous as kite flying, consider it a possible transportation strategy for the rapture.