'Excuse me' won't be enough to stop global warming
'Excuse me' won't be enough to stop global warming
By: Bill Mead
Topics: global warming
Posted by editor Tue Nov 30, 1999 00:00:00 PST
Viewed 470 times
0 responses 0 comments Sometimes I don't mind being laughed at, but I hope you will control your snickering long enough to consider the seriousness of what I have to tell you.
I want to address an extremely delicate matter because of what happened aboard a commercial airliner just a few weeks ago. Too many reporters tried to make a joke of this episode, but I assure you it's not funny.
Passengers and crew aboard this airplane became alarmed when they smelled burning sulfur so the pilot hung a U-turn and went back to the airport. Waiting security personnel quickly nailed the perpetrator, an inoffensive female passenger who admitted that she had passed gas and then, worried that the consequences might be offensive to those around her, lit a match as an antidote.
I can hear you giggling, just as I thought you would, because you don't really care about the earth's future. The lesson we should be learning from the case of the bloated airline passenger is that in the midst of our concerns about global warming, far too little attention is paid to flatulation as a significant cause of this ominous trend.
A report from the United Nations, released just three months ago, alleges great harm from the large amounts of methane released when cattle break wind, which they do a lot. But humans do their share as well. My dogged research has uncovered the shocking fact that every one of the billions of people on this planet passes gas seven times a day, on average. What if even a small percentage of these folks lit a match afterward due to a twisted sense of social responsibility? We're talking massive clouds of greenhouse gas, not to mention a few spontaneous explosions here and there.
You can go on chortling and slapping your knee over what I'm saying but I'm the kind of guy who looks beyond cheap laughs to seek practical answers. That's why I have drafted legislation which I hope will be effective in clearing the air on this matter, so to speak. I admit that what I'm doing skirts awfully close to restricting personal freedom but I think the peril we face from unrestricted gas emissions justifies more controls over individual bodily functions. My proposed law would criminalize the unauthorized release of intestinal gas by establishing, for the first time in history, a prosecutable offense known as Felony Flatulation.
I admit there are parts of this legislation that need a little more work, like specifying the lawful alternatives to breaking wind in the wide open spaces. I'm on top of this and I believe part of the solution will be a massive increase in production of Beano. Another possible glitch lies in finding a method of nailing gas spewers who would be sneaky enough to light matches to cover their sins, just as the fastidious air traveler did.
But as the saying goes, Rome wasn't built in a day and with time we will work out the kinks in my proposed law. When I take this crusade back to Washington, where the elected population is more prolific than almost anybody else in passing gas, I trust I'll have your support.
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