Archive: Opinions

Most people get it when I say I want global warming here, now.  It has been an intolerably cold winter.  My 'budget plan' monthly oil payment went up by nearly $100 per month this month.  The winter storms have forced all kinds of things to close or be postponed, including about half the news I hoped to report on this week.  I spent a week in Florida a few weeks ago, a place I don't particularly like, but it's where my family lives.  I usually look forward to coming home (because of the place, not because of my family).  For the first time I really wanted to stay.  It's a joke about something that is not a joke.

But I guess I have to watch who I say that to, because environmental zealots don't see the humor.  More than once I've yearned aloud for global warming and have been subjected to lectures on how it really works, the melting ice caps, changing weather patterns... someone recently asked me if I wanted beachfront property here in Lansing (I think they were joking).  Of course I replied that I do.

To zealots global warming is no laughing matter, but these lectures I've received underscore something that I believe strongly: you're not going to change peoples' minds by guilting them into it.  Or by taking a superior attitude.  Or especially by not having a sense of humor.

I'm not saying my joke is Jimmy Fallon material.  But good grief, if adults can't tell I am saying I am too cold like everyone else this winter, I guess they're not as superior as they must think they are.  Is casual conversation a crime now?

I never know whether someone will smile knowingly or embark upon a rant.  I was checking out at a big box store one day and made the comment to the cashier.  First she gave me a cold stare, colder than the temperature outside.  Then the stern lecture started, and I couldn't get a polite word in edgewise or make my escape.  I thought I was making friendly conversation.  She thought I was a charlatan who doesn't get climate change.  I don't think that was the right time or place for a lecture on how global warming works.  It didn't enhance my shopping experience.  I am considering not shopping there any more.

If this miserable winter is, indeed, a symptom of climate change I think suffering the cold is misery enough without suffering the high and mighty lecture.

I suppose it is a function of aging, but I am hoping at least one of my kids meets a nice southern kid so that we parents can move someplace warm to be closer to our grandchildren (if they ever do and if we ever have any).  I could do a southern accent and get used to grits and hushpuppies if it would just be warmer.

"Boay, you are a chicken hawk and ah am a chicken!"  How was that?  OK, I can work on it some more...

I'm just saying.

Or maybe I should keep my mouth shut and not say anything at all...

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