Is it getting hot in here?

Global warming. Well, that’s a tough one.

I was listening to NPR last year (yeah, I know, I impress you with my knowledge acquiring skills) when I heard one of the best ways to sum up what has been going on with our climate and weather patterns.

The reporter was saying that what he had gleaned from the weather gurus was that the pattern of change is less like global “warming” and more like global “weirding”. I friggin’ love this phrase. It totally defines how our climate feels lately!

Temperatures are all over the place, from extreme highs to bitter lows. Precipitation patterns are freaked out as well. Last summer was known for extreme flooding in the midwest and of course this year, there’s a drought. For God’s sake, we had to shovel to go trick or treating last year, and I picked a ripe, orange pumpkin last week. In the middle of July. We weren’t even really sure that it WAS a pumpkin! I don’t think that I wore an actual winter coat this past winter and the year before, everyone and their mother was buying a roof rake. I’m sorry—a WHAT?!?!

My point is that we have come to expect the unexpected. It simply does not impress me to hear that we are in the middle of a record breaking summer. Big deal! Last year was a record breaking summer. The meteorologists are beginning to sound like broken records. I know, that one was really corny and I contemplated striking it, but I just had to leave it in.

Now here is where I wax philosophical—try and keep up, cause its hard for me. When I think about my view of our impact on the earth, I try to hold a level headed and objective standpoint. I want to be able to leave the politics outside with the dogs (where they belong), and form an educated and structured opinion.

Oh, who am I kidding? I’ll admit it—I’ve always believed in Mother Earth. I am firmly of the thought that we are living on a breathing, feeling, sentient being. Ok, I just lost about 56% of you (which leaves about 3), but hear me out.

For those of you who know me personally, I have been known to dabble in hippy dippy crunchy spacecase. But at the end of the day, I always ground myself in science, thanks to my Schmecker gene. Think about what makes up a human being—well, we have lungs. Trees are lungs. We have blood. Water is blood. We have a venous system. Have you ever seen the Mighty Mississippi on Google maps? Think of the core as her heart and combustion system, top it with an exoskeleton, and you kind of have a being.

Can’t be! The earth exists solely for our use and all of its resources are here at our disposal, you cry! The earth is not ALIVE! Why not? From the perspective of space, humans can’t even be seen. Go back to Google maps and zoom out. You tell me that Earth is not itself alive. We don’t MAKE this place run, dumbass! We’re just along for the ride.

Then where do we fit in? What role do we play? Well, I don’t think that you really want to hear the answer, but I’m gonna tell you anyway.

Parasites. We are the disease that is running rampant on this being and we are almost ready to kill the host organism on which we are partying. In a balanced body system, parasites are necessary to the health and well-being of said organism. They have a role to play and are beneficial when kept in check. But when these nasty little buggers get out of control, all hell breaks loose and the host organism has to try to kill them in order to survive.

Hey, I’ve got a question for you. What happens in our body when we get sick? What is our first line of defense when our balance is threatened? Fever. Chills. Our internal combustion system kicks into over-drive to flush out intruders, viruses and malware by making them really uncomfortable until the threat either dies or retreats to behave itself again.

Is it not possible that Global “Weirding” is not simply a physical reaction to the misalignment of chemicals in and around our planet, but also a physiological response by our fair mother? Couldn’t it be that she really is sick and is fighting off her summer cold, just like the rest of us parasites? Think about it.