Global Warming gets a boost!

I’m certainly a believer when it comes to the immediate threat to our planet of Global Warming. After hearing Al Gore and watching the incredible supporting graphics offered through An Inconvenient Truth, I was swayed.

When the film ended with Melissa Etheridge’s title song, written especially for the film and bearing the same name… well, I was convinced.

As our family continues to make change in our impact on the planet, it occurs to me that the scientists and environmentalists, politicians and rock stars might have missed two key causes.

Never before have we had so many women approaching middle age on this continent. As the impact of the Second World War continues to play itself out, the boom of children born post war is now approaching middle and retirement age. We all know this.

If my friends (and myself) are any example, the past decade of heat waves have, all by themselves, made a hefty contribution. Millions of women are overheating. We’re layering our way through the day, starting with a Tshirt, adding a long sleeved Tshirt, then perhaps a vest, then a sweater. And all day long we remove and add these items as our temps go up and down.

My friend Linda, so eternally cold that my Christmas gifts are always mohair socks, lambswool mitts, scarves, fleece comforters, etc., called recently. A few years younger than the rest of us, she registered absolute shock at her first ‘flash.’ “I mean, what WAS that?” she was querulous. “I felt like I’d been put in a microwave, turned on high and absolutely burning on the inside while my outside skin is cool to the touch. This is inhumane,” she moaned.

I’ve noted that now that she’s no longer cold, she’s much more interested in the complexities of our own personal global warming indicators.

I always try to catch CBC news and I really admire the insight and articulate expression of Chantal Hébert. Her analysis is potent and she joins her fellow analysts regularly to comment on political items. I felt somewhat relieved recently when I watched her neck, then her chin, then her face turn the brilliant purple that I’m usually battling. It even happens to news folks… and that’s really unfair!

And so, as my generation contributes unwillingly to Global Warming, we’d happily adopt a cooler pattern of living. As the scientists head back into their laboratories, perhaps they might put their minds to this…

Surely it could be recaptured, siphoned off to heat a few schools, the local hospital? Several million of us would appreciate it.

And my second Global Warming theory?

Emails.

“I sent it.” “I didn’t get it.”

Trillions and trillions of junk emails, spam, lost emails that never reached their destination, rejected emails, misdirected emails… they’re all out there somewhere, even after we hit the ‘delete’ key. Where are they?

What do they look like? Do they wiggle? Do they stay in the frequencies that started their journey or have they just spun off into space, floating aimlessly, hoping they recognize a url they can attach themselves to?

I know a fellow who can’t bear to store, sort, file, categorize, or catalogue his emails. Every single email he has ever received is still sitting in his ‘in’ box. At least he doesn’t have to feel guilty about contributing to the overwhelming burden our technology is placing on our world. Heck, he can just measure his energy as his cursor roams up and down, mindlessly looking for a price quote he sent in 2005.

Now, if the lost or deviant emails could just link up with the personal GW’s our women are creating, perhaps they too could head off into cyber space and jack the world temperature up another notch. At least the female gender could put away its fans, close the car windows in February, find winter coats they haven’t worn since 1993–that sort of thing!

Not a bad concept when you come to think of it. And that would be a Convenient Truth!