BRRR!

By Lee Pitts

Don’t scientists talk to each other? 

For years the Union of Concerned Scientists has told us polar bears are dying and Hollywood is going to be underwater due to global warming, but if they read the Grower’s Guide out of Colfax, Wash., they’d realize we need to speed up global warming, not slow it down.

I read the Grower’s Guide religiously and not only because they carry my column. Recently, I read a fascinating article in it saying Earth is not the best planet in the universe for humans to live. According to the article by Sara Zaske, first appearing in Washington State University News, we don’t have the best of everything. 

Sara says there are 4,500 known exoplanets beyond our solar system. Researchers looked at all of them and identified two dozen planets outside our solar system, which may have conditions more suitable for life than our own.

This article also appeared in the journal Astrobiology. I let my subscription to the particular august publication run out, but you’d think some scientists read it. If they did, they’d know researchers made a list of traits superhabitable planets would have. For example, an improved Earth would be larger, wetter, and get this, warmer.

Stop the presses! 

We’re spending trillions trying to stop global warming, when according to these researchers, the mean surface temperature of Earth would be more ideal if it was five degrees Celsius or eight degrees Fahrenheit hotter.

Even though scientists in Sweden have found during the last 70 years their country experienced a change in their temperature of exactly zero degrees, Al Gore insists the earth has experienced a net degree change since 1850 of one degree due to man-made greenhouse gases. 

If we’re going to feed everyone, and if Earth needs to be five degrees Celsius hotter to achieve maximum food production, and if we only increased by one degree in the last 170 years, this means we won’t reach our ideal temperature on Earth for 850 years.

Do you realize what this means? 

It means we need more farting cows, more fossil fuel burning F350 Ford pickups and Chevy Tahoes, and we need to rid the world of Priuses. In light of this new information, Smart Cars really are stupid. We need to restart those coal plants if we’re to have any chance of reaching our ideal temperature. 

We don’t need to stop global warming, we need to speed it up. Get rid of the energy efficient refrigerator, tear the solar panels off your roof, let the air out of your tires so you get worse gas mileage and better yet, buy a jet like the one Leonardo DiCaprio rides around in to attend global warming conferences.

Ask for a straw even if you don’t use one, don’t ride share, peel out every time the traffic light turns green and quit freezing in your own home. Crank the thermostat up to 72 degrees and leave it there, even when you’re not home. And, for gosh sakes, quit planting trees and Brussels sprouts because they consume carbon dioxide, which lowers the temperature here on Earth.

Something called Project Drawdown says the best thing we can do to prevent global warming is to educate more girls because the more education girls get, the less children they’ll bring into this world and the smaller carbon footprint they’ll leave behind. If we need to speed up global warming should we then consider going back to all male schools? 

We don’t have much time to waste. 

The researchers also found our sun is not ideal because it has a relatively short life span of 10 billion years, and we wasted the first 4.5 billion when no form of complex life lived here. This means the human race only has five billion years or so left to live. 

And, more bad news – if you’re thinking we can just escape to one of those 24 planets that are more ideal to life, keep in mind the closest ones are 100 light years away, and one light year is six trillion miles. That’s a six with 12 zeroes.

Elon Musk better get on this problem right away or we’re all going to freeze to death when the sun goes out.