Get Out of the Water

So, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton were both elected to second terms; Jimmy Carter and Al Gore both won Nobel prizes; and Paris Hilton remains a celebrity. It is a most curious world we live in. I wonder at times if we’ve lost our ever-lovin’ minds.

Considering this state of affairs—the losing of our collective minds, that is—I thought I’d weigh in with a voice of reason. Who knows, maybe I’ll win a Nobel Prize, be begged to run for elected office or catch the eye of some modeling agency. “Yeah, the kid can’t write,” they’ll say, “and he’s about as graceful as Frankenstein’s monster, but that left side of his face. Hmm, there’s something there...”

So let’s talk Global Warming. Al Gore got a Nobel Prize this past week because he thinks that Global Warming is going to cause the world to be swallowed up by water even though God assured us that it wouldn’t thousands of years ago. Global Warming, or the lack thereof, seems like an issue that is nearly impossible to get unvarnished truth about. The oil companies have a vested interest in making sure their products appear safe as milk and more vital than water, while the Gaia crowd believes that humans, with their love of fossil fuels, have no redeeming qualities and should be wiped off the face of the earth and replaced by evolutionarily superior life forms like cockroaches in order to stop Global Warming and make our Mother Earth happy.

While they both have well-funded and cleverly-biased research to back their positions, my instinct is that they’re both right to an extent and both missing the boat completely. I think they’re overlooking a major factor contributing to rising sea levels, something that Speedo Inc. and others are no doubt trying to keep under wraps—swimming.

Have you ever filled your bathtub up too high? What happened when you climbed in? You displaced a large amount of water causing your tub to overflow and your bathmat to get wet and become mildewy after a few days, right? With the world’s population at over 6 billion and more and more people living and vacationing in coastal areas, it is no wonder we have more people getting in the water. Now, when one or two people get into the ocean, it’s no big deal. But when hundreds of millions of people wade into the Big Blue, it should come as no surprise that the seas are gonna’ rise. You do the math.

So what are we to do about it? Get out of the water. I repeat, like the lifeguard at the local pool, Get out of the water. It may sound simple, and I assure you it is. Simple solutions don’t get big grants, though. Sure, boats are part of the problem. As I said, both sides have missed them, but good luck getting Big Oil to pull their tankers out of the ocean. Not going to happen. And anyway, do you really want millions of gallons of gas being flown over your neighborhood in jumbo jets? I don’t think so. No, it is up to us to hike up our soggy trunks, readjust our slimming swimsuits and make for the sand. If we can pull together and collectively decide that we love the water, but we love seeing all of the Statue of Liberty even more, we can turn the tide on this very serious problem and Save the Planet. I believe we can do it. Are you willing to stand with me (making sure to secure your trunks first)?

Good. Now go out and nominate me for something.