2009 02 08

I think one of the great disservices perpetrated on the world during the Bush interregnum was the soi-disant debate about global warming. I know that most of you think that global warming was invented by Al Gore along with the internet, but it is a serious issue that deserves serious attention. We, humanity as a whole, are fucking up the planet to the extent that we are not going to be allowed to continue living on it if we're not pretty damn quick about fixing the issues we've been causing. Yes, George, there is world outside the US and because of idiots like you, it is in serious danger. I tend to read a lot of articles and reports on the issues that I think are important, and I came across a piece on msnbc.com that deserves my attention. Don't ask me how I got to msnbc.com, I usually get my news from reliable sources such as the BBC. Anyway ...

After many pages of fairly interesting exposition on his trip across part of Greenland on a dog sled, and citing lots of examples of how global warming is affecting the locals, animals and men, the author ends his piece thusly:

"After all, new signs of climate change are occurring constantly. For example, the largest floating glacier in the Northern Hemisphere, the Peterman Glacier, in northwestern Greenland, appears to be coming apart. In July 2008, satellite photos showed a giant crack in it, seeming to indicate that a massive breakup of the glacier might be imminent.

I have no idea how all of this will affect the way Greenland will look in a hundred years or 20 or the next decade, or what it will mean for the rest of us. Yet when I give Mathaeussen [local guide and sled driver] a tip which I feel he well deserves, he is so profuse in his thanks, swearing he will spend it on dog food (although I know there is also a fresh supply of pipe tobacco and probably a little whiskey involved too), that I suspect that as long as tourists are coming to see global warming up close, Greenlanders will continue to adapt just fine. (my emphasis)" (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29040497/, "Going to the Dogs in Greenland")

I find it offensive that he passes off global warming as a tourist attraction. But maybe I was reacting badly because, just before this little titbit, he meandered into hetero-sexist bullshit that could easily have been edited out without loss to the world of literature:

"We spend our final night in a cabin similar to the first day’s, except it’s bigger and we share it with two Danish women and their dogsledding guides, all of us wedged against one another on a sleeping platform — in the Inuit tradition, apparently. Although it is a long evening of conversation, mostly in Danish, my only recollection of note is that there is nothing like sleeping in close quarters with women who are of slight acquaintance and quite attractive to make you realize how desperately you need a bath."

Thank you for sharing. However, this is a story that I would never be able to write because I don't think I will ever be able to force myself to endure temperatures of less than zero again as long as I live, so I point it out to you with caveats.