The Herald - Everett, Wash. - www.HeraldNet.com

Published: Monday, March 12, 2007

Mudrock isn't warming up to Al Gore's global hysteria

Larry Simoneaux
Freelance Columnist

I'd been struggling with the problem of global warming for some time.

I'd listened to Al Gore explain how we'd brought end times upon ourselves, that woe betides us all, and that draconian changes are needed. Still, being it was Al Gore speaking, I kept having this dim flicker of doubt.

I knew there was only one person I could turn to for guidance.

I found Mudrock, my personal muse, head down and about 700 pages into some novel.

"What's that you're reading, Mudrock?"

"Book."

Mudrock's penchant for conversational brevity hadn't changed a bit since our last meeting. I knew I was going to have to pry a bit more out of him.

"I know it's a book. What's the title?"

"Rainbow Six. Tom Clancy done wrote it."

"What's it about?"

"Bunch of wackos wantin' to kill off most of mankind to make the world safe for purple-spotted snail snatchers or some such - an' themselves, of course."

"Pretty good idea for a book these days."

"Ha! But this time, Lar, the wackos screwed up royal an' found themselves suckin' wind."

"How so?"

"Well, I'm near to the end here an' the good guys have the wackos stripped down to the altogether an' are about to drop them off in their jungle paradise. Looks like they're 'bout to experience all God's creatures of bite and snarl, if you catch my drift."

"Nothing like a heart-tugging ending, but you can't call it a jungle any more, Mudrock. That's politically incorrect. It's a 'rain forest' now."

"Jungle was good enough for Tarzan. Jungle's good enough for me."

I saw we were getting wide of the mark, so I thought I'd just throw my problem at him.

"So, what about this global warming, Mudrock?"

"Next best thing there is to global coolin'."

"Huh?"

"Earth ain't ever stayin' one temperature, Lar. Place has been colder than a well digger's butt sometimes an' hotter than the hubs of hell others. For one thing, you got to look at what them scientists call cycles. Why do you think we're standin' here on good old dirt instead of a couple thousan' feet of ice?"

"Cycles?"

"Yep. Whole place warmed up a while back an' melted the glaciers which had iced things up worse than the insides of your old freezer. Happened more'n once, too. Ain't likely man was responsible for all of that, seein' as how we weren't aroun' for a lot of it."

"Might do some good to check out what the sun's been doin' too. Strikes me that if'n it's been workin' a bit harder, we might be catchin' some of that extra heat too. Been known to happen."

"But Al Gore says the debate's over and we're the bad guys."

"Only time most folks say the debate's over is when they're scared the other side's arguments are 'bout to catch fire."

"But what about all the scientists Al quotes?"

"You need to get out off that Cabela's website an' read up a bit more. Do that an' I'd bet that even you could find jus' as many who say otherwise."

I let him go on.

"Be nice to lissen to a real debate on this one, but it's gonna be hard to get a good one goin'. It's got too political. Tell you what really gets me, though. It's when the folks tellin' me I gotta do all of this an' that to stop pollutin' run aroun' in jets an' limousines an' burn through electricity like boozehounds go through beer. Makes me wonder if somethin' else's goin' on."

"So you don't think we need to do anything?"

"Didn't say that at all, Lar. Way past time this country stopped usin' oil by the boatload. Probably do us a world of good to get into that solar power an' wind stuff, too."

"Got a bit of a problem there, Mudrock."

"How's that?"

"Some of the best places they've found to put wind powered generators might end up blocking certain people's views and they're not having any of it. They've hauled up the 'Not in my backyard flag' and that was the end of that."

"Figures."

"So you're a bit skeptical of all of the doom and gloom Al Gore's talking about?"

"Does a rockin' horse have wooden ears? Best remember that it wasn't all that long ago that they was tellin' us about the how the Earth was goin' to ice up again. Now quiet down an' let me finish my book."

Larry Simoneaux lives in Edmonds. Comments can be sent to larrysim@att.net.