Satire on Global Warming: NY Times 7/24/98
et in dc (prop1@prop1.org)
Fri, 24 Jul 1998 10:22:32 -0400
July 24, 1998 New York Times:
Global Warming Is Our Friend
By T. H. WATKINS
OZEMAN, Mont. -- Once again, while the worst heat wave
in years kills people right and left (more than 130 at last
count) and the residents of much of the country shrivel like
sausages, conservative economists have come forward to explain
that what we thought was bad for us is in fact very good for us
indeed.
Take, for instance, Thomas Gale Moore, a fellow at the Hoover
Institution and the author of "Climate of Fear: Why We Shouldn't
Worry About Global Warming." In this book and elsewhere, Mr.
Moore argues that the whole phenomenon of global warming
should cause us to stand up and cheer, not gnash our teeth or, even
worse, get the United States foreignly entangled in shady global
warming treaties.
"Humans, nearly all other animals and most plants would be better
off with higher temperatures," Mr. Moore claimed in an article in
The Wall Street Journal last October, a theme elaborated upon in
his new book. Among many other advantages, he says, agriculture
would flourish because there would be more rain and longer
growing seasons. Winter heating costs would plummet. Also,
despite what the current toll might suggest, he insists that more
people die from cold than from heat, and that if the United States
continues to bake like a Butterball turkey, as many as 40,000 lives
could be saved annually by 2099.
It brings me a hot flash of gratitude to know that I and those I love
will have a better chance at life when the temperature makes us
drop to our knees and bite doorknobs. But there is even more to be
said for global warming, I think.
Consider what an economic shot in the arm ocean-front casinos
would be for Winston-Salem and Atlanta. Or how coffee and
banana plantations in the Cascades would compensate for the
old-growth timber taken off the market through the efforts of
spotted owl groupies. The film industry would not have to go all
the way to the Philippines to shoot Vietnam War movies; low-rent
Des Moines would serve just fine.
But I am particularly taken by what increased rainfall and soaring
temperatures might do out here in the High Plains, where the
ranching and farming industries are in shambles. Town after town
has turned to cappuccino bars and prison construction to take up
the economic slack, to little avail. But as rainfall increases
exponentially and rivers start to bloat, the region will be
presented with a sublime opportunity.
A lot of dams already plug much of the Missouri River and its
tributaries. Forget them. Stick in one really big dam at, say, Little
Eagle, S.D. Soon, an inland sea will emerge, one larger than the
Great Lakes combined, stretching from western Minnesota to the
Flathead Range of western Montana, from Rapid City, S.D., to
somewhere near, or over, Birtle, Manitoba.
There will be obstacles, of course. But pesky state and
international conflicts over the project could be worked out by
Jimmy Carter, the former President and all-purpose mediator,
while private property rightists would welcome the opportunity to
gouge the Federal Government as compensation for their now
submerged real estate. We can shift folks on the Standing Rock
Indian Reservation down to the Pine Ridge Reservation; they're
used to being picked up and moved around by now, and we can
always name the body of water Lake Lakota.
The lake, of course, would be a magnificent tropical sea, and
there's the beauty of it. You want islands? Rebuild Bismarck,
Helena, Great Falls and select other short cities on big platforms,
borrowing the technology from the script notes for Kevin
Costner's "Waterworld." (Unselected towns would be deep sixed,
of course, but how many cappuccino bars and prisons does the
country need?) Plant palm trees all around. Kathie Lee Gifford
would soon be warbling on American-made cruise ships the size
of Cleveland, which would sail from island to island, distributing
tourists in flashy dress who would buy millions of covered dishes,
samplers, cow statuary, sachets and other handicrafts from the
colorful natives.
Sure, we would lose what's left of the area's cattle and wheat, oil
and gas. But most agricultural products would be grown in the
Yukon River Valley by then (cantaloupes probably would be
confined to the federally watered deserts of Maine), while the
enormous ranches of the Nome Peninsula would revivify today's
decrepit free-range cattle industry and the oil and gas fields of the
Arctic Ocean would, if anything, glut the market.
And think of what would follow: percolating seaside factories
grinding out jet boats and cabin cruisers; year-round resorts
bristling with beach-front hotels; condominiums ringing the shore
like conglomerates of grain elevators (many would be old grain
elevators); millions of retirees fleeing the twice-a-day hurricanes
of Florida and settling here amid the balmy gales and lush,
county-sized golf courses of beautiful Lake Lakota ("Where the
Big Water Meets the Big Sky").
Take me out of the oven, Mom. I think I'm done.
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
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