The silver lining for climate change and food
Drought, labor shortages and severe weather have severely reduced farm crop yields this year, so much so that experts predict food shortages by 2013. The conservative right remains unconvinced Climate Change is behind the nefarious weather, instead blaming randomness and coincidence.
Given the evidence, denying global warming (or in some places cooling) is more and more a dying fringe argument. The GOP needs to change tactics fast or risk being seen as that weird conspiracy crop circle guy. The solution lies in the power of positive thinking.
Manhattan might end up underwater, the Midwest an uninhabitable desert and Polar Bears a thing of the past. On the bright side, there’s fewer Bears eating our salmon, Oceanside property is worth way more money and the Midwest was already doomed to tornadoes anyway. See that, we flipped our outlook with positive thinking!
If Climate Change, random weather coincidences or divine intervention gives you droughts… you make drought-aid (um, the metaphor works better with lemons). So here’s the silver lining to the global warming conundrum and our food supply:
Obesity
Move over, Jenny Craig and 30 minute workouts! We’ve been battling obesity for decades now with relatively little success. Exercise is too strenuous, diets require too much discipline and liposuction drains your wallet. Enter climate change and Midwest droughts: crop damage leads to food shortages. Food shortages mean rising prices. Rising prices mean Americans will eat less. Presto… Instant weight loss success!
Vegetarians will seem less weird
Sometimes people accidently invite vegetarians to dinner. They didn’t mean to… the invitation slipped out and the couple responds with an excited RSVP, followed by an ingredient list of words that mean ‘meat product’ and foods that abuse chickens. So come dinner time, you scour your cabinets for canned beets or something, ultimately choking down plain brown rice and tofu… Now that climate change has kicked into gear, vegetarians will seem remarkably less insufferable as dinner guests.
The corn shortage plaguing mainly is not the corn you grilled with oil and salt, or the creamed corn from Thanksgiving. A good portion of the distressed crop was going into animal feed; cows, chickens and such. The cost of feeding your future hamburger is going to rise soon, and we’ll feel it at grocery check-out. Right now, meat costs more than it used to, but not enough to serve Fakin’ Bacon at any self-respecting breakfast table. Once dogs and brats cost 10 bucks a pound, though, Vegetarians will be the ideal Barbeque goers.
No more scouring labels for ‘high fructose corn syrup’
Every now and then a company makes it easy and slams ‘No High Fructose Corn Syrup!’ in bold lettering across the label, but most of the time shoppers actually have to read novel sized labels to omit corn syrup. Thanks to climate change, ‘corn syrup’ brands will be extremely easy to pick out of the crowd. It’ll be the box that costs 3 times more than all the other boxes on the shelf, even the ones with prettier packaging. No more hour long label reading grocery trips, or scouring your smartphone app-world for the gadget that will CTRL-find ingredients for you… Global warming is working to save you time and unnecessary reading.
Positive Thinking
So, now that we’ve explored some of the benefits of climate change, it doesn’t seem so daunting or nearly as terrible or apocalyptic as liberals suggest. A little positive thinking can go a long way in the battle against environmentalism. Tell your friends.
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