SEATTLEITES NO LONGER CONCERNED ABOUT EFFECTS OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE Kevin Calaway, editor. SEATTLE, WA – Seattle, previously one of the most liberal and environmentally conscious cities in the country, has been abuzz with conflict after a couple of weeks of nice weather in early July 2014. No rallies against big oil or wasteful energy consumption have been held since July 1st, with attention instead going to the planning of pro-oil, anti-rainforest protests. “It’s simple,” University of Washington student Elissa Cameron told The Sleuth, “we were all set to fight against global warming, when suddenly, around the Fourth of July, we realized what warming felt like. Screw the ice caps. Snow just makes it harder to get to work.” Over the past couple days, as rain and sixty-degree temperatures have returned to the Seattle area, the newly-proclaimed “antienvironmentalists” have taken to the stores to buy rubber umbrellas. “I never owned an umbrella before,” explains 54-year-old Seattle resident and environmental scientist Harold Scorsese, “it’s a totally un-Seattle thing to do. It used to be the norm, believe it or not, to walk around with raindrops constantly falling on your head, and quite often, you’d hear swathes of Seattleites singing ‘Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head’ in several-part harmony. It was really a beautiful thing, if impractical. To be honest, I always figured umbrellas were an urban legend. “But now, the stores can’t stock enough. No one has figured out how to use them yet. They’re these rumply sticks that couldn’t possibly prevent people from getting wet. Nothing like the domey things you see on television. Rather than try and figure out the intended use for the umbrellas, however, we realized that if we just burned them, it could accelerate the release of what were previously considered harmful gasses into the environment, and at any rate the increased production of the rubber in the umbrellas will almost certainly expedite the heating of the atmosphere.” Some skeptics, on the other hand, are holding out, believing that the sunny weather is only a brief spot of hope in an otherwise bleak future. David Jackson, warden at North Seattle Community College, is one of those people. “Look, I like the sun as much as anyone else,” Jackson bargained, “I grew up in Tucson, for Pete’s sake. But if the global temperature raises enough to give us weather like that all the time – to negate the effects of the convergence zone – to keep the skies clear and the temperatures above seventy even in the autumn? Everyone between the tropics would be burnt to a crisp. It’s selfish to try and accelerate global warming just so we can finally have a summer. A summer where we can actually enjoy the beautiful Pacific coast. A summer where people might actually get tan. A summer where I don’t have to ask my cousin to mail me a jar of sweltering Arizona air just so that I can feel like it’s actually August. Excuse me one moment.” Eye witnesses reported seeing David Jackson leaving JCPenney with two dozen rubber umbrellas in his bag. Despite their complete turnaround in terms of short-term goals and attitudes about climate change, the antienvironmentalists are still keeping abreast of potential challenges they face. “Sometimes I worry that if we cause too much damage to the environment, the nuclear summer we create will be the last one we’ll ever see,” laments Roosevelt High School student Timothy Capra. “But then I think of it from a realistic standpoint and I realize… it would be the spring break to end all spring breaks! Gnarly, brah!” “It’s a shame about the ice caps. Those penguins and polar bears are going to have to find a new home,” Hillary Hughes, spokesperson for Seattle tourism agency Visit Seattle, reminds us, “but if those ice caps melt and the ocean levels rise, we might be able to visit Mt. Rainier AND the beach on the same day! Plus, with all major cities submerged, think about how much traffic the Cascades are going to get! It’s win-win!” The smell of burning rubber has become nauseous for a lot of Seattleites, but overall, reaction to the antienvironmentalist movement seems positive. “Sure, it smells foul,” Karen Tarantino, an attendant at the Green Lake rent-a-boat station, explained to The Sleuth, “but hey, at least we don’t have a paper mill!”[]
Posted on: Thu, 24 Jul 2014 22:49:18 +0000
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