THE LEAST FUNNY thing in the world today is the novel coronavirus. Unless it’s how I look breathing through a Brita filter, or opening doors with my feet, or the phrase “under the leadership of this president.” But that’s not what’s getting me down today. (Ask me tomorrow.) I can’t stop fretting about climate change. Even though the virus has actually slowed human impact on the environment, I’m not content. And it’s showing.
People tell me I’m no fun anymore because I fail to see the silver lining in clouds which, I keep pointing out, would not actually float if they contained metal of any kind. (Nor do they contain stuffed-animal parts, despite often resembling your favorite childhood comfort friend.) Nor do I “walk on the sunny side of the street,” since that side is no longer protected by a healthy ozone layer. If apocalypse were a color, I’d be looking at the world through apocalypse-colored glasses. And that glass would be three-quarters empty, not half full. And yes, I’m mixing metaphors, because I like them shaken, not stirred.
The front of my mind may be on the virus, but the back of my mind is on the climate. And it’s a small mind, so there’s not much distance between the two.
Case in point: A few months ago, a colleague returned from his lunch in a nearby park and reported, “What a beautiful day!” He said this because it was 63 degrees and sunny outside, all the characteristics of burgeoning spring. “But it’s FEBRUARY!” I forcefully reminded him, “40 degrees hotter than normal! It is not ‘beautiful,’ it’s terrifying!”
“And it’s a portent of things to come,” I added, hoping I was using that word correctly, “and I will permit NO sweet talk about it!”
See. I’m just no fun anymore. And that was in the middle of “winter.” I’m even worse now. I admit this might not be the best time to raise the climate alarm. According to Fox News, when you complain in the middle of a crisis, you’re just politicizing it for partisan advantage. (So, how about thoughts and prayers?)
My climate anxiety was heightened by learning the earth has officially entered a new era of devastation. This one is called the Anthropocene, a human-caused global extinction, and a great name for a hand sanitizer, which they’re still out of on Amazon. It means that humans have lived past our freshness date and are no longer useful to the planet. It’s time to make way for a species more compatible with nature, like maybe earthworms. Heck, they already share the same genetic code as us, and they aerate the soil much better.
Maybe it’s a good thing that dinosaurs were wiped out in an earlier extinction. I wouldn’t want them to see what’s happening to their world now. These gigantic reptiles would be shocked and saddened by the damage we small mammals have done to the planet, and they’d wonder why woolly mammoths—their natural descendants in the category of extra-large—didn’t slow us down when they had the chance. And shame on saber-toothed tigers for not lending a hand. The earth would be better off if we humans had been kept huddling in our caves, even if it meant some of us would never fulfill our potential. “Hey, Bill Gates, it’s your turn to forage. And stop harping about ‘windows!’ We haven’t even invented doors yet!”
But we don’t live in caves anymore. We live in houses and apartments, waiting for the government to say we can come out and drive our cars again. In the meantime, COVID-19 is giving our warming planet some breathing space, but it shouldn’t breathe too close. Even planets should follow CDC guidelines and stay at least six feet apart. (Talking to you, Saturn. Keep those rings to yourself. And do you really need so many?)
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