1.) ACTUALLY THAT'S MUCH BETTER THAN I THOUGHT Earlier this evening I edited an absolute nightmare of a column by Paul Dechene who's a total jerk as it turns out. Dechene wrote the Top 6 for the upcoming prairie dog's news section. The topic--tying in with the recent G8 pledge to hold global warming under two degrees--involved him doing a pile of web research on what, exactly happens when the world heats by 2/3/6 degrees etc. Yeah, as you'd expect, it starts out pretty awful then rolls smoothly into nightmarish and apocalyptic. We might have to give our copy editor danger pay for reading the thing. It's completely terrifying. So yeah, thanks for that Paul.
Anyway, on a related note, this past Thursday the Guardian had an article on American beliefs about climate change. A recent poll, the paper reports, shows that only 47 per cent of Americans believe climate change is a serious problem. Yeah, well, you know what? Given the state of public education in the U.S., which is constantly under siege by mystics, morons, dipshits and douchebags, along with the stresses caused by widespread poverty, economic collapse, hyper-religiosity, psychotic mass media and other well-documented, massive national failures, I think the fact that the 47 per cent of Americans have any grasp of reality whatsoever is cause to cheer. I'm not being facetious or sarcastic. This is much, much better than I would've hoped for.
You can read the Guardian's article here. Oh--surprisingly, Republicans are more skeptical about climate change than Democrats. Which makes sense since studies have long shown Republicans are also more likely to be stupid jerks.
2.) Hey, if you're not depressed about climate change and human stupidity (which, as I just said, is actually not as bad as feared, thank goodness for small mercies) you could try reading this Paul Krugman article in the New York Times. Realllllly depressing. It'll knock you right down. A quote:
"Put it this way: if the consensus of the economic experts is grim, the consensus of the climate experts is utterly terrifying. At this point, the central forecast of leading climate models — not the worst-case scenario but the most likely outcome — is utter catastrophe, a rise in temperatures that will totally disrupt life as we know it, if we continue along our present path. How to head off that catastrophe should be the dominant policy issue of our time. But it isn’t, because climate change is a creeping threat rather than an attention-grabbing crisis."
Hooray! Hooray for doomsday scenarios!
3.) Speaking of Dechene, we went to a movie tonight. We're a couple of high-class, art-loving joes so naturally we went to Drag Me To Hell, the Sam Raimi horror-comedy now playing at the Rainbow. Yeah, so, anyone who's ever watched me watch a horror movie (or scary videogame) knows I'm not necessarily the best person for when there's things jumping out and loud, scary, sudden noises. I almost had a heart attack during M. Night Shyamalan's Signs, which proves I'm a humongous coward.
So, turns out Drag Me To Hell is basically all cheap scares for the first half of the movie. I had to watch it with my eyes covered. I still wrenched every muscle, joint and tendon in my body. Not going to be able to move tomorrow.
Oh--the movie is totally awesome. Dumb, stupid fun. Wheeee (ow)! Highly recommended if you like that kind of thing.
A terrifying moment from Drag Me To Hell. Eeeek! The Lamia!
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