Dingus of the Week: Climate Change Deniers

Also, get in losers, we are negging the aliens

Yesterday, as I was driving through Iowa, I looked out of the window and saw a small strip of grass between the highway on fire. Just a small tiny fire. No one was around. googled later and found no mention of it in the news. The grass was so dry it could have been that someone tossed a cigarette out of their window and it caught fire. Could have been a million different things. But it was a small piece of Iowa in fire and we are all just driving by, going along with our days.

This is quite literally all of us right now.

• Water temperatures in Florida reached 100, and the coral is dying.

• Death Valley reached its highest recorded temperatures.¹

• Arctic sea ice is being lost.

• People are falling and getting burned from the ground.

• Animals are suffering.

• Because of extreme rainfalls and snow melt from the mountains, a lake dating back to the Ice Age just reappeared in California.

• Canadian wildfires are burning faster and longer because of the extreme heat.

• Melting glaciers on Mt Everest have revealed bodies frozen there for centuries.

Despite all of this 46 percent of Americans do not think climate change is a major threat. If the earth literally self-immolating doesn’t convince you that we are in trouble, I don’t know what will. I suppose I should focus on the fact that 54 percent of Americans do think it’s a major threat. Still, 46 percent is a lot of Americans literally choking on wildfire smoke from Canada, watching their sneakers burn on the pavement and saying, “This is fine.”

Our world is burning, sea levels are rising, people are dying, and you know what politicians are concerned about? Those wacky kids and their wacky pronouns.

Even the politicians who say they are committed to climate change action, still kowtow to the special interests of oil companies.

In the face of the fire of this dingusry, it’s easy to feel defeated. Yet, as Rebecca Solnit argues in her column for The Guardian, we do not have to accept this doom. There are solutions. And our defeatism isn’t the answer in the face of flames. She writes:

I don’t know why so many people seem to think it’s their job to spread discouragement, but it seems to be a muddle about the relationship between facts and feelings. I keep saying I respect despair as an emotion, but not as an analysis. You can feel absolutely devastated about the situation and not assume this predicts outcome; you can have your feelings and can still chase down facts from reliable sources, and the facts tell us that the general public is not the problem; the fossil fuel industry and other vested interests are; that we have the solutions, that we know what to do, and that the obstacles are political; that when we fight we sometimes win; and that we are deciding the future now.

She goes on to write, “I wonder sometimes if it’s because people assume you can’t be hopeful and heartbroken at the same time, and of course you can.”

So much of our anxieties over world events and the dinguses that cause them and then do nothing about them and instead blame immigrants coming in through the southern border, can feel impotent. Our rage can feel pointless. But it’s not.

There is a myth that frogs when placed into a pot of cool water will stay in once it starts to boil. But that’s not true. Frogs eventually climb out as the water heats. And it seems, that as the waters around us heat up, more and more of us are climbing out of the pot.

Writing in the New Yorker Bill McKibbin notes that we are at a hinge point in history. “It’s eruptions on that scale that change the political reality,” he writes. “And those eruptions are usually rooted not just in fear and anger but also in love and resolve.”

And Now For Something Good:

Sea Lions in California modeled positive boundary-setting behavior when they charged tourists who didn’t show them the proper respect. May we all be like the Sea Lions.

Prom Mom by Laura Lippman is out so you know what I’m doing this weekend.

The Boy Scouts are becoming more inclusive and welcoming.

More charges?! You don’t say.

Aliens are real! And there was a whole congressional hearing about them. Sadly, no one asked the most crucial question of all. “Are the aliens single? And do they want to hang out at my house this weekend?”

In response to this, NBC wrote an entire article stating that UFOs aren’t a cool enough conspiracy for Americans anymore. Like sure, UFOs were fun for guys in the 60s to trip on acid and yell about, but these days, we got more fun conspiracies like QAnon and kitty litter in schools. UFOs are so 2000 and late. Imagine you are an advanced race of aliens that has developed the technology to make contact with Earth and the day after people finally admit you are real, you are getting cyberbullied by NB fucking C, because no one is accusing you of running a sex ring out of a pizza place.

NBC is Gretchen Wieners.

Imagine you are an advanced race of highly intelligent beings and you roll your little spacecraft to hover over New York City and some dweeb who writes blogs for the internet is like, “My dad has a nicer UFO!” Then, teens are making TikToks about how your green skin is cheugy.

Imagine you are a race of highly intelligent beings preparing for every outcome after making contact with a planet that is hellbent on destruction, and when you get there the humans just neg you.

Literal military commanders look you up and down and say, “Oh, the last aliens we saw were hotter. But you’re fine, I guess.”

Honestly, this makes me love humanity.

What I Am Drinking:

This week was a light drinking week for me. On those weeks, I love making freaky little drinks by mixing bitters into sparkling water. I also got a pack of various simple syrups from a local liquor store that have been very fun to play with.

This week, my kids are on vacation with their dad, and I’ve decided to try making another deranged boozy slush. If you missed the little ditty about Slush of Diane, please go read it, it will change your life.

Last week, I had a woman I didn’t know, stop me in the grocery store to tell me she made Slush of Diane and she and her husband got tipsy and could not stop singing about Slush of Diane to the John Mellencamp song.

This is the power of Diane. Watch this space for more. In the meantime, is this a safe space, guys?

Are you sure?

ARE YOU SURE?

Because I need to tell you, this song is an absolute bop.

Also, listen, until we get this whole patriarchy thing sorted out. I need more men to don fancy little outfits and do choregraphed dances. You know, just until we figure everything out.

1. And for you detail-oriented people, I enjoyed this article about reassessing some early record-setting temperatures in Death Valley.