Global Warming

I grew up in the space age. I am just old enough to remember my father getting me out of bed to watch the “giant leap for mankind”. As a teen, I gazed at the stars with a telescope and still wonder what’s out there. I’ve cheered the space shuttle, and agonized over the disasters. I’ve wondered what’s beyond what I can see with a naked eye.

Yet, in today’s world, I cannot help but wonder what we are doing spending billions and billions going back into space. The Europeans are heading to the moon again. We are hoping to put humans on Mars.

There is much news about global warming, but very little news about what they’re doing about it. Alaska is melting, “which may be triggering a self-perpetuating climate time bomb”, Greenland is dumping fresh water into the ocean which may cause Europe to cool, and any day, you can drive to the nearest big city and see a dirty, brown cloud over it.

Yah know what I think? I think the people in power, those with money, those in Congress, are planning to leave. Yup, and though I’m fit for space flight, (Are you? Take a quiz.) I haven’t the more than 20 million dollars it takes to book a berth, like this woman. And do you think they’ll take us peons? No, you’ll have to pay for a spot. The scientists and politicians, they know this planet is doomed, and they’re planning to colonize somewhere else, only they’re not saying, and they’re not taking you!

So here’s my plan. Let’s take all the billions of dollars they are spending on the space station and space programs, and use the money on alternate energy programs. We can start with the government buildings. They sure use a lot of hot air. We could install solar panels on the houses of lower income people, so they can use money spent on utilities for more interesting things, like food. We could build light rail systems. Now there’s a novel idea. We could actually move away from dependence on oil!

Let’s take some of those billions and feed the starving babies I see in the news, give medicine to the AIDS victims, who leave those babies orphaned. Let’s use some to give people clean drinking water. Let’s use it to save what we have now, instead of trying to find a way out.