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April 3, 2007

Notes from Ferdy - It's Time to Do Something About Global Warming

We are living in the Global Warming Moment. This is mostly because of the concept of carbon offsets. You can buy carbon offsets from companies such as TerraPass and MyClimate.

There are some people who think the whole carbon offset thing is counterproductive. There are also complexities in computing the reality of the offset. Planting a tree helps remove carbon from the air, but on the second paw, it also pumps out water vapor, the most powerful greenhouse gas of all. On the third paw, the water vapor will eventually condense and fall back, creating cloud cover which cools the Earth, but on the fourth paw, trees also absorb sunlight, which has a warming effect.

Most humans, who only have two hands, stop halfway through the above analysis, which is why it's a good thing I'm here to help you.

The point is, carbon offsets insulate people from the reality of the situation. If someone is willing to sell you an offset, the temptation is to take it and run, regardless of whether or not the offset is based on hard science or high fancy.

Fortunately, I am working on a carbon offset solution that is completely guaranteed and that any citizen can participate in: killing squirrels.

Squirrels breathe almost constantly, and every breath attaches evil carbon atoms to countless innocent oxygen molecules. Killing squirrels is fun, educational, and good exercise. (Just make sure that if you kill a really big one and you want to finish it later, you don't stash the half-eaten corpse in the dining room.) As a cat, I come fully-equipped with a squirrel-hunting weapons suite, but if you don't have a cat to help you hunt squirrels, here are some tips.

• If you're good with guns, consider a .22 semiautomatic rifle with laser sight. This enables you to pick up the pieces of the squirrel for later disposal. There's nothing more annoying than taking out a squirrel with a 12-gauge shotgun and then having to scrape the stupid beast off your car window with a spatula.
• Do not drink while killing squirrels. Many people have reported that a full pint of Everclear Extra Dry enables them to see twice as many squirrels as they would otherwise. This is a false economy, because these paired squirrels are much harder to hit, even at close range. Also, there is a risk that your foot will start looking like a squirrel, and shooting yourself in the foot is pretty generally accepted as a Bad Thing.
• If you're not comfortable with guns, consider a shoulder-fired heat-seeking missile. I'm sure you can find a couple of dozen on eBay. The downside with the missile is that if you blow up your neighbor's house, it will release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and you'll have to kill another few dozen squirrels to make up the difference.
• For flying-squirrels, use surface-to-air missiles.
• Proper disposal of the dead squirrel is critical. If you try to cook or cremate them yourself, you'll be releasing more carbon into the air and all your good work will be undone. Instead, put them in a double-layered plastic trash bag and dump them in a landfill. Before closing the bag, throw a couple of those Altoid peppermint things inside, or the drive to the landfill can be pretty unpleasant. You can also control the smell by putting the individual squirrels in zip-lock bags before you put them into the big bag, but this increases the expense.
• Do NOT try to eat the Altoid Peppermints. It is much cheaper to simply douse your tongue with alchohol and set it on fire.
• Some landfills don't like plastic garbage bags. In that case, use the individual zip-lock bags and staple them to a large plywood board. To insure the board doesn't rot or catch fire, you can have it coated in a melamine resin. Paint on a catchy title such as Dead Squirrels for a Cleaner Future and present it to your local Sierra Club chapter. I'm sure they'll be speechless with gratitude.

Anyway, I know you're all concerned and I hope this really helps.

Respectfully submitted,

Ferdinand T. Cat

# At Tue 9:38 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (1) | More Notes from Ferdy | Tags: carbon offsets conservative environmentalism Global Warming heat-seeking missiles humor hunting MyClimate satire shotguns spatulas squirrels TerraPass trees water vapor

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» The Carnival of Satire (#71) from the skwib
Welcome to the Carnival of Satire, now running every other week! (Until it isn’t). To start with, we have some interesting problem-solving on how to deal with climate change: Ferdinand T. Cat thinks It’s Time to Do Something About Globa... [Read More]

Tracked on April 5, 2007 8:51 AM

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Posted by: Matt Jessup at April 7, 2007 4:44 PM

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