Not to Mention, Of Course, Hating Dear Ol' Mom and Dad

I'd like to start this note off with a bit of a disclaimer, in two parts:

Part One:
I love my parents more than words can say, please don't assume otherwise

Part Two:
I very rarely, if ever, listen to Coast To Coast AM on WTAM 1100.

Thank you for your patience, as it was much appreciated. Now, on to my rant.
----------

So I was driving home tonight, and I clicked on my radio, roughly around 1:30am for the drive home, which would, at least, take me about 30min.

WGAR? Nothing.

Q104? Nothing.

107.3 The Wave? Too sappy for this late at night, especially without a date

It was obvious FM wasn't going to do it for me, so I switch tuning frequencies over to the beauty that is late night talk radio on WTAM 1100. Which, after roughly 11pm on weeknights hosts the national broadcast of what is quite possibly the only radio tabloid show out there...

COAST TO COAST AM

On this show you will hear everything the government doesn't want you to hear.Or so they tell you on the program. If there was such thing as a liberal media conspiracy, this show would be a forerunner. (Addendum to my disclaimer...there is no liberal media conspiracy, and I am a liberal so please don't give me any political banter...thank you)

Typical topics of conversation on Coast to Coast AM:
Aliens
Bigfoot
Government Conspiracies
Ghosts under your bed
Ghosts in your closet
Ghosts in your basement
Ghosts in your mother
and so on...

As you can see, very rarely a decent conversation to be heard. But tonight when I tuned in the first words I hear mid-sentence are:

"Carbonic Acid Build Up in Oceans Expected to Kill Off Coral Reefs by 2050"

Followed by:

"Amphibians Are Dying Out At An Alarming Rate, This recent and massive decline in amphibian populations, that have been on Earth for millions of years, is one of the greatest extinction events in history."

Amidst the discussion, obviously the topic of global warming appeared as the culprit of all this, and I listened with a bit of a voice in the back of my head that kept reminding me what show I was listening to and that despite my inherent interest, that I should keep in mind that it was probably embellished information. However, despite my best efforts, I got hooked and began listening.

What I gathered was that our CO2 emissions have begun to get so bad that we have nearly doubled the natural volcanic output that was seen shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, and that we are slowly causing all that CO2 to be absorbed into the ocean, and that acid from the C02 is what is slowly killing all the coral reefs at an alarming rate, eliminating them, supposedly, by 2050, only 42 years from now.

Keep in mind, if this is true, which I can not attest to as I'm not even sure I got all my facts straight in the sentence above (it WAS nearly 2am, and I am not a scientist), that means that we will be entirely throwing off the eco-scale, if you will, in the ocean, which could have dire effects on humanity, and it is only 42 years away...42 years, as in when I'm 62, there will cease to be coral reef on this planet.

This meaning that when I'm a grandparent my stories won't be about my hilly, cold, barefoot walk to school, or my back-breaking work ethic, but will be something like this:

"When I was your age, Pluto was a planet, and there were entire sea-scapes of beautiful coral underwater..."

To which, my grandkids will cheerfully roll their eyes and say "Oh Grandpa" while assuming I've gone senile, and deciding which nursing home would be the least likely to beat me into a submissive old-person's coma.

But I have digressed, quite a bit at this point...

My point is, after all this scientific jargon had been exchanged, the host said something, that I suppose should have frightened me, but I actually had a quite different reaction. After the guest finished his statement about coral, the host replied, quite calmly..

"So, are you telling me that this current generation maybe the last generation to know the Earth in the way we've all come to know it?"

And if thats not scary enough, his reply was...

"Yes."

The LAST generation to know the Earth as it is today?

Are you fucking kidding me!?

If it isn't obvious yet, I was pretty effing pissed. (Addendum to the Addendum to my disclaimer...yes I said fuck, and then "effing"...its 2:27am...bite me)

Are you telling me, honestly, that we are going to be the final generation to see Earth with oceans, forests, grass, wildlife...hell even blue skies, and fields instead of deserts?

And you're telling us this now? When we are just turning 21? Just hitting the prime of our post-youth...when the days of lying around in the summer grass, or drawing daisies with crayons on construction paper are about to be traded in for bank deposits and office-mergers?

Seriously, how dare you?

All I could think was how pissed I was at the people who are one, or even two generations above us, for how conceited and self-centered they must have been for this to happen.

Why can't we have the carefree days of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s...days when Fathers knew best and there was a sitcom on TV to prove it.

Days when the biggest concern was what Mom was going to make for dinner that night, or if Joanie would take your class ring or jacket and hold your hand so you could "go steady".

Days when you could sit in the park, dressed in rags, smoking marijuana with your friends, and that was the "far out thing to do, man."

Days when if someone had uttered the words "Internet", "Global Warming", or "Computer", people would think you were speaking a foreign language.

Why is it that we have had to miss all that, hear of it only in our parent's nostalgic waxing, and in our history class textbooks, and instead have had shit like Global warming dumped in our laps?

Things like an endless war in the middle east?

Things like computers, the internet, and TV which take away from the time spent with family, friends, and the ones we love

Things like having to worry from day to day if our kids are going to go to school where they are supposed to be safe and succeed in life, but instead risk the chances of being gunned down by kid who just couldn't cope anymore.

Things like finding out, 21 years down the road, that what we've come to learn as common place, our own Earth, will, supposedly, cease to be the same, in only 40 to 50 years.

Why is it our responsibility to remember, because the generations before us took these things for granted and wasted our resources away.

Why are we being handed a failing economy, while our parents prepare, and our grandparents live off of a failing social security program that we pay into weekly, but will never be able to appreciate by the time we're old enough to benefit from it? (Addendum to the Addendum to the Addendum to my disclaimer, I am not against the idea behind Social Security, or the fact that it aides my grandparents, just the fact that its failures are becoming our responsibility to fix.)

Now I'll say that the technology didn't exist back then to identify what we have found to be the problems we have now, but part of me feels that just isn't a good enough excuse.

In Germany right now, high up in the mountains, is an Ark, similar to Noah's where they are currently stocking, in two 60x60 rooms, seeds of nearly every plant on the planet, so when the flooding starts, and farmlands are reduced to lakes, oceans and deserts, and the predicted famine sets in, there will still be hope. Of course, this is all speculation, so even I ind it hard to believe that such atrocities could all occur simultaneously and so quickly, but why is it that all we get is a "Sorry the world will soon severely change for you, so take these seeds as a consolation." When they got to live in the proverbial natural lap of luxury, and apparently never appreciated it.

Its OUR generation that started the "Go Green" movement.

The Disney Channel now encourages kids to go out and help plant trees and clean parks and natural forests.

The DISNEY Channel, viewed typically by KIDS 8-14, and the adults behind it are passing their mistakes unto us them fix.

That is grade-a bullshit.

Now mind you, what sucks the most is we can't do anything about it.

Rebel, and the world fails.

Succeed, and it survives.

I guess the real question is, is it worth it?






Or should you start looking into friendly nursing homes now...?

P.S. - I suggest ones in high lying regions...unless, that is, you like to swim.

Sincerely,
My Conscious