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Before I anoint this column with its proper subject, please first allow me to take a brief moment to say Grace, and thank the Universe for the awesome spectacles and miracles that it performs on a daily basis. Ahem. Dear lord, I know I often ask much of you, consistently begging you to do my bidding and to watch over me and take care of me, but it’s a brilliant, bright, beautiful day, and I have one small request to ask of you. You see, Today, as I’m sure you are aware, is Sunday, February 4th, 2008, which means only one thing; it’s the Super Bowl (oh yeah, and you’re mandated day of worship and rest), and as I’m sure you are well aware, this week, I placed one hundred dollars on the stoic minded, defensive juggernauts also known as the Bears from Chicago to lose by no less than seven points to the heathens from Indianapolis, the Colts. So what I’m getting at here, Dear Lord, is that I would sure appreciate you shedding some justice into an often cruel world by repeating the miracle that you performed exactly one year ago to the day, when you sided with the Steelers of Pittsburgh to win the 2006 championship. And so I ask you, just one more time (until next year), to allow me to walk with you in the path of grace and all that is holy and good, and let the Bears win. Thank you, and Amen!

Well, that was a little weird, letting my real inner mind spill out onto the page for any old person on the internet to read, but hey, in my continuing quest for honesty and openness, I felt it was the appropriate way to begin this column, since that was pretty much the first monologue to run through my head when I woke up this morning. But all humor aside, it really is a beautiful, warm day today, here in Portland. And it seems to me that it is awfully not ironic, that I woke up in the middle of what is supposed to be winter to sixty degrees and sunshine in a place on Earth that is normally frozen and gray this time of year, in the same week as the media finally gave credence to the theory of man-accelerated global warming.

(Important Side Note: Spell check is annoying me, again. It just made me spell the word gray with an “a”, and not an “e.” I prefer to spell it with an “e,” and both options are acceptable in the English language. So, uh, what’s the deal, Bill Gates? Maybe you and your honey should take a minute off from trying to cure every known disease on Earth to update the spell check in Microsoft Word. Let’s not lose sight of the details, okay, Bill?)

Okay, giant concessionary paragraph slash rules of debate paragraph begins…now. To argue about whether or not we can afford to stop using gas, coal, and other pollutants and still provide ourselves with electricity and the other amenities that we are accustomed to is okay with me. But to argue about whether or not ‘modern science’ can prove if weather patterns are changing from our way of life, or because of natural cycles is a pointless argument, and an obscene one too boot. I call this argument pointless, because whether or not we caused an effect is irrelevant to the fact that the effect is incredibly dangerous. And I call this argument obscene because it offends me in its pathetic attempt to rationalize self-destructive behavior.

So for the sake of debate, let me be very clear about something: To me, the term Global Warming has officially become a pop-culture-catch-phrase-cover-all-term, meaning that “Global Warming” no longer only applies to the changing core temperature of our Earth, and how much of our ice deposits are melting because of this temperature change. Global Warming, sociologically speaking, has now come to encompass environmental harm, pollution, and other so-called ‘side effects’ from human produced chemicals, machines, and other toxic waste. And I think that my redefinition is justified because of the way that the media throws around the term Global Warming to refer to any environmental changes in our world, and not just the actual core temperature of our planet. Basically, the media, and even our President now use the tem Global Warming to refer to any environmental changes that are occurring, natural or otherwise, the same way that a convenient store uses the word Soda to refer to any beverage with carbonation.

But ignorance is no longer bliss, and I’m really getting tired of hearing the pathetic excuses about how we’ll know when global warming is affecting us when the winters are colder and not warmer (as they have been). And go ahead and cite the mini ice age in Europe during the 1300’s as further evidence of so called natural Earth cycles. But tell me that you haven’t noticed how disgusting and polluted our Earth is, and I will tell you to have your eyes checked, and if they are alright, then I suggest that you take an IQ test, because if you think that everything is peachy-keen here on Earth, then you are probably mentally retarded. Let me be even clearer; I think that arguing about whether or not global warming is mankind-accelerated is a diversionary tactic used by people who do not want to alter their current lifestyle in order to preserve the future quality of life on Earth. Arguing about what our lifestyle is doing to Earth creates a pointless debate that stalls any sort of solution to the problems that we as a culture have obviously created.

To put it another, way, who really cares about whether or not the glaciers are melting “at they rate that they are supposed to,” when it’s a well-accepted fact in our modern world that you should not catch a fish from any major river in America, and then eat it, because our major rivers and lakes are too polluted and toxic? And who cares about whether or not we’ve caused more hurricanes to develop when cities like Mexico city have installed alarms that they sound on days when the air is so polluted that you are supposed to stay indoors, and if you must go outside, you wear a gas mask, or if you are wealthy enough, you carry an oxygen supply with you? Do we need any more futuristic-science-fiction-nightmare-scenarios to become a reality before we, as a culture, begin to clean up the mess that we are still making? If you are so far gone into a state of denial that you will not accept responsibility for a mess that we’ve collectively created, then fine, dilute your own intelligence with stubborn idiocy, but you could not accept responsibility, and still recognize that there is a mess, and it needs to be cleaned up.

But, to be perfectly honest, I feel that pretending that our way of life is not affecting the Earth is akin to a fat person not blaming the bags of potato chips, XL pizzas and beers that they eat every night for the weight that they are putting on. Not owning up to the collective damage we our inflicting on our planet is like having unprotected sex with forty whores in a harem, and then breaking out with some disgusting skin rash on your penis, and then purposely not seeing a doctor, because you believe that until a doctor officially diagnoses you with an illness, you are not really sick. This mode of behavior is pathetic, and makes me embarrassed to be a part of humanity. Our Earth is very sick, and as a culture, we are staying at home and refusing to call a doctor, because until a doctor acknowledges what we already know to be true, we can keep the party raging, for one more night, and no one wants to end a party and be called the party pooper.

As a modern culture, we’re behaving like drug addicts, deceiving ourselves so we can keep getting our fix. Go visit any major city in the world, and you will see that there are innumerable signs out there to prove how much we’ve damaged our Earth—and again, I’m not just talking about the weather, I am talking about more obvious things, like air pollution, water pollution, and landfills of waste that will not recycle itself. Take a walk in a park – any park, even a national or state run park, and I’ll bet that you will find at least one pound of garbage, if you look around for a fifteen minutes. My point? As a culture, we are irresponsible, and amazingly, stubbornly stuck in our ways, and we need to move the debate away from, “are we causing this?” to “what can we do about this?”

Yeah, I like my car, and I love my crazy road trips that it takes me on (See STBY# 4). But I don’t need to wait for some scientist or head of manufacturing at GM to tell me whether or not my car is bad for the environment. I’m not an idiot. For the same reason I wouldn’t drink a tall glass of gasoline, (because I can tell what is and is not good for me, and for my body), I know that I shouldn’t be operating a machine that constantly spews carbon monoxide directly from a pipe to the atmosphere which harnesses the very life force that I need to survive. Our Planet is just like our body, and just as you shouldn’t put things into your body that will kill you, I’m pretty confident that most of the chemicals that we’ve invented that kill humans if ingested will kill our earth if we continue to pour them into our drains with no regard to how and where they are disposed.

But I’m not on a mission to change anyone’s mind, today. And that’s because there’s nothing ‘urgent’ about my message, since I don’t think that our way of life is going to kill off the entire human race. (That, and the fact that I want to finish this up and go watch the Super Bowl.) Humans are like cockroaches, and we find a way to survive, even if the quality of life is horrendous. And that’s my whole point; I think that in our raging debate over the causes of global warming, we’ve overlooked the immense decline in quality of life that our way of life has already caused! I think that if we continue to debate whether or not we’re causing a problem, instead of solving said problem, that we’re going to continue to accelerate the deterioration of our beautiful planet at a rate which will make us long for the days when you could take a stroll outside and take a deep breath of air that actually felt good, and tasted good. And I think this day is coming a lot sooner than most people want to admit, and it’s a shame that we’re still “refusing to call a doctor.”

And for the record, hell no I am not perfect, and hell yes I am still part of the problem! But I’m a hypocrite that is trying his hardest to be less of a problem, every day, and some of the changes I’ve made in my lifestyle over the last ten years have been fairly easy, and are actually making a difference. Want proof? Here’s a very succinct list of a few of the things that I do every day to try and help preserve our planet: 1) I throw away all of my garbage (including every single filthy cigarette butt from my disgusting smoking habit) into an appropriate dumpster, and then pray that the waste management in my city is making an effort to recycle this waste and not just dump it into a landfill. 2) I recycle as many products as I can, and when I see someone throw away a recyclable in a regular garbage bin, I take it out, and put it in an appropriate recycling bin. 3) I use my bicycle to run any errand that does not require trunk space and use my car as infrequently as possible (I’m down to two car trips a week now!). 4) I take three to five minute long showers. 5) I don’t use paper towels, or napkins in my home, and instead use rags and my t-shirt and jeans to clean up any and all messes. 6) If I see a piece of trash outside, or a pile of litter, and I have time to spare, which I usually do, I don’t ask who left it there, I don’t ignore it because I didn’t do it, instead I stoop down, clean it up, and realize that a clean Earth is a better Earth, and the only way to keep it clean is to, uh, well, clean it.

So go ahead, argue with the other cronies in our society about the intricacies of the causes of an obvious problem like Global Warming. Go ahead and argue about whether or not our way of life is accelerating this process or not. And go ahead and cough up something black and disgusting, and then proceed to light another cigarette; because like I said, ignorance is bliss, and this party that we call the industrial revolution will last as long as you let it last. Besides, so long as you don’t go to see a doctor, then no matter how ill you may actually feel, you’re not officially sick, and that means that it is okay to keep partying, right? Yeah, well that’s how Jim Morrison lived his life, and he seemed to be doing fine his last night, even after an alleged forty shots of vodka, but then he was found a few hours later, dead in a bathtub, having choked on his own vomit. But until the last breath escaped from his lungs, he was having a good time, right? So What’s up, Doc?