In the end I read it, from cover to cover, but it usually takes me a long time. I read a few pages and then leave it for awhile, to give myself some time to recover from the grim news it bears.
This month’s edition is chock-full of horrible truth about the environment, specifically the sea and global warming. I haven’t gotten all the way through it yet because it is AGONIZING. If even a small portion of what they’ve reported is true, then you and I are screwed. I think this month has affected me more than other months because I CAN’T TAKE IT when humans fuck with animals. If one human blows up another human, it sucks, it’s regrettable, it shouldn’t happen, but ultimately I get over it. But if we humans endanger the lives of animals it unseats me. I can’t let it go. It makes my heart break and fills me with the anger I’m trying to expunge from my body. (I don’t know why this disparity exists and maybe it makes me a bad person. Whatever, there it is.)
So, not knowing what else to do, I’ve written an angry letter to our president. Here it is for your enjoyment.
Hey, fuckwad!
Yeah, that’s right, I’m talking to YOU. If I told you that someone in a position of power elicited advice on global warming from a politically conservative fiction writer, would you think that person in power was 1) mentally unstable, or 2) you? I mean, seriously, asking Michael Crichton about whether or not global warming is actually happening? What the fuck is wrong with you?! Now America is not only evil, we’re also ridiculously stupid in the eyes of the world. So, thanks for that.
Also, I was just wondering, what do you have against animals? Seriously. It seems like you enjoy killing them. But it has to be slowly, right? Reduce the regulation of emissions from coal factories, let the mercury from those factories go unchecked, allow it to blow out to sea and get ingested by algae and krill and work its way (with amazing potency) up the food chain. In a few years the large fish (including dolphins, sharks and whales) will be so toxic that their children will be born with three eyes and not live past their second birthdays. It’s quite a plan, really. It must’ve taken forever to concoct. I’m wondering if you realized that the top of the food chain is, well, us. Have you registered that yet?
Of course, when you get bored waiting for this little scheme to come to fruition, you can always fall back on the pleasure that is found in hunting endangered Alaskan wolves with sniper rifles from helicopters. Now that’s a sport! It takes a real man to do that shit. What, with the danger of it and all. The helicopter could crash.
Speaking of global warming (wait, was I?) did you know that the glaciers in Antarctica are melting to the point that Polar Bears are beginning to drown because they can’t swim the long distances between chunks of ice? And when they do manage to make it to an ice patch and find a meal, the seals that they feast on are so full of mercury and other chemicals (I know you have a short attention span, re-read the second paragraph) that they poison the bears, not nourish them. (The same thing is happening to most Inuit cultures.)
I realize that this has probably been an arduous read for you, but there’s one last tidbit I’d like to leave you with. Ice reflects 80% of the sun’s UV rays, whereas water absorbs 80% of the sun’s UV rays. Can you do the math? Do you get the idea? The more ice that melts, the more biomass in the form of water we create, the faster global warming will happen... Do a google search for “exponential” and you may begin to get the idea.
So, please, stop asking Michael Crichton for advice about global warming (or anything for that matter) and find yourself a real scientist. Try one from Canada. Canadians are so much more polite than we Americans are.
Most Sincerely,
Porfiry the misanthrope
