Enough Already

I don’t know about everybody else, but all this snow is really starting to get on my nerves. After temperatures in the late-fifties and early-sixties during the first half of last week, how could it not? What the hell ever happened to global warming? According to Al Gore, shouldn’t I be catching a tan right now? Instead, I had to spend half an hour yesterday digging my truck out of more than a foot of snow. Despite Mr. Gore’s incessant warnings (it’s hard to imagine a blockhead like Al Gore actually giving a rat’s ass about the earth’s environment if it didn’t give him a shot at office . . . again), the industrial smokestacks of the world--especially those in China if it means cheaper prices here in the good ol’ US of A--can blast out as much pollution as they want if it’s going to mean more enjoyable weather between the months of November and April.

I know what everyone’s going to say. First, I’ve just gone and pissed off every Democrat in the room and, considering this is New York, that means everybody’s all bent out of shape because I took a jab at their favorite nancy-boy, Al Gore. Second, my understanding is that if global temperatures continue to climb 0.10 degree every year for the next thousand years, the polar ice caps will begin melting at an alarming rate, meaning our oceans will rise approximately five inches by the time I reach my ninety-sixth birthday.

Last time I checked, five inches isn’t all that much. I think we can give away five inches, even if it means moving closer to the center of the country. Have any of these raving environmentalists ever driven from one coast to the other? I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but I’ve got news for those of you who consider yourselves raving environmentalists--we got land, and we got lots of it. We can spare five inches on either of our coasts. We can do five inches standing on our heads. Sure, it may mean the Hollywood elite in Malibu may have to pack up their stolen Norman Rockwell paintings and move closer to Pasadena to avoid drowning in those extra five inches of water, but they can live with that (and afford it, too). Likewise, with the exception of the smell, I can’t imagine a few more inches of the East River causing much of a problem for Manhattan. And, most importantly, by the time I hit ninety-six (I should say if I hit ninety-six), I’m sure I’ll find myself a lot more concerned with getting in and out of the bathtub on a daily basis than whether or not the tide has risen half a foot.

With all that said, what’s the big frigging deal? If a little more pollution is going to mean a lot less snow this time of the year, I’m all for it. I had plans this weekend, big plans to log some miles on the bike, but once Friday morning rolled around and I woke to find a blanket of snow covering the landscape outside my bedroom window, I hit the shower cursing Al Gore and all his do-gooder friends attempting to keep me and everyone else in the Northeast in a perpetual state of frozen irritation for the twelve weeks following Christmas (I’m way too politically incorrect to use the term holidays instead of Christmas and if that offends the sensibilities of anyone who holds Judaic or Islamic beliefs, well, too bad for you).

So enough with all the concern and all the worry over the polar ice caps. For starters, none of us will ever lay eyes on anything remotely resembling an actual ice cap, so who cares if we inadvertently whittle ‘em down a few notches? And like I said, we’ve got plenty of land. Worse case scenario, everyone living on either coast has to pick up and settle down someplace new and exciting, like Kentucky and Nebraska. I’ve heard good things about Nebraska--real good things.