Global Heating — Self Worsening

The American West was our last frontier not long ago.  Well, not exactly. We went on to take a good part of Mexico, set a fire-sale price of $15 million, and made it the American South West.  President James Polk called it “Manifest Destiny,” which was very appealing to many people, especially men and also slave owners.

Then it was on to Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines (a good try), …

Soon enough, it was the Whole World via fossil fuels, oil drilling, and fracking the bedrock for “natural” gas.  No one was worried about global warming, except Gadfly who called it global heating.

The western states were a little concerned — heat waves, wildfires, and smoke blotting out the sun weeks before the expected fire season.  San Francisco had red skies all day long.  The wildfires were directly adding to the heat of the planet, but also increasing the atmospheric level of CO2, the best greenhouse gas we have.

Meanwhile, more and more forest land was cleared for cattle ranching and factory farming, and cut for timber harvesting.  Forests were being decimated, and less was left to act as a carbon sink to save the Planet.

As well, some federal lands adjacent to our National Parks were going to be leased to the oil and gas companies.  The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was getting its instructions directly from the White House.

Sound the fire alarms louder!