“The Warmth of Your Engine Will Be the Flood That Wrecks My Village”

Global Warming. By this point, the only people blissfully unaware of the dangers of the advanced greenhouse hypothesis are the members of the Amazonian Indian tribe recently discovered. But why should they care? After all, they live completely carbon neutral lives. They don’t have to have fears or guilt about “eating what they want…heating their homes to 72 degrees,” for which the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee wishes to chide us.

Global Warming is a problem for the west to deal with, because it is our two hundred years of industrialization that has brought this nightmare down upon us. We are responsible for creating a scourge so terrible that its name must be capitalized upon every use. It is our economy of consumption and waste that has created this problem which, for the last 25 years has been the most imminent threat to the world, more terrible than AIDS, Malaria, genocide in third world countries, zombie attacks, time traveling murderous robots and asteroid impacts combined. It is so awful that for every one of those last twenty five years, leading experts promised that within five years of their prediction we would be covered by water, facing killer storms, forced to suffer through season after season of shows about D-list celebrities either: losing weight, dancing, going through rehab, or trying to find love.

And now their predictions have come true. After Hurricane Katrina, the Earthquake in China, more than 170 tornados in the US, the victory of David Cook over David Archuleta in American Idol season 7 and the return of Tila Tequila for another shot at love, we have undeniable proof that Global Warming is upon us.

And so, I propose the following methods to stop the climate crisis once and for all:

-Introduce a 50 cent per gallon tax on gasoline at the national, state and local level. When the populace has to pay an extra $1.50 for gasoline per gallon, they will be less inclined to drive, thus reducing the release of the dangerous pollutant CO2 into the atmosphere. Also, it will encourage people to bike and walk more thus solving the obesity problem, which leads to the next point…

-Standardize weight as a function of people’s height. These standardized weights will be determined by a government board of doctors and nutritionists. Obesity adds drastically to the release of CO2, as overweight people must breathe deeper to provide oxygen to their blood. This can be enforced easily, by having a government task force which will weigh each citizen on a bimonthly basis. A penalty will be paid at each weigh-in for each extra pound above the standardized weight. There will be no penalty for being under the set weight. In the future, it may be worthwhile to allow tax credits for weighing less than one is supposed to.

-Add a 10% tax to each standard unit which provides heat (CCF natural gas, gallon of oil, etc). This will encourage the citizenry to learn how to live with their heat set to 55F throughout winter.

-Euthanize the elderly and any members of society deemed unproductive. As previously stated, breathing releases CO2. Under the new plan, it will be necessary to rationalize CO2 production. If it cannot be justified, it cannot be allowed.

While these plans may initially seem somewhat draconian, upon further inspection and analysis, one can easily realize that these actions are necessary for the good of the planet and future generations. Of course, we will have to disregard the fact that these future generations may not exist because most people will not be able to afford them.

But the question also arises: who will be in charge of this program? I propose that we create another brand new faceless, nameless government bureaucracy, answerable to no one but themselves and fully charged with the task of saving the world from us, the awful American people.

I think we can all agree that the Polar Bear, now officially recognized by the federal government as threatened by global warming, is far more important than the economic, social and political freedoms upon which this nation was established.