solutions

By Raymond Lesser

Over the years, some people have suggested to us that The Funny Times is missing out on a large part of the magazine buying public because of our strongly progressive bent. “Conservatives like to laugh, too,” they assure us. “You can easily make fun of both sides on a lot of the issues you are obsessed with and probably double your audience!” So today we’ll give it a try by presenting several ideas that have recently been proposed by climate change skeptics and deniers as solutions to some of our most pressing climate concerns.

GIANT FANS POINTED AT CANADA

This month in Cleveland and much of the Midwest and Northeast, we have been inundated with smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires. This toxic smoke is not due to so-called man-made “climate change” as many of our liberal friends seem to believe. They were started by lightning strikes in remote regions of Quebec and Ontario. Lightning has been starting fires for quite a while longer than since man first learned to harness his Weber grill to make the perfect smoked turkey breast. No, mankind didn’t create this smoky problem, but using our ingenuity we can easily solve it. First of all, why not get the usually tidy Canadians to put all their curling brooms to good use during the off-season (is there a Curling off-season?) and sweep those messy leaves and twigs that make perfect kindling off the forest floor. Meanwhile, on the American side of the border we need to build a row of giant wind turbines, especially along the shorelines of the Great Lakes. Then, whenever there’s a wildfire, or a Canadian barbecue gets out of hand, we simply reverse the current and blow the smoke back to Canada where it belongs. As a bonus when there aren’t any wildfires, we can use the turbines to generate free electricity, since the initial investment to build these fans will be paid for by the “Send It Back Where It Belongs” tax on every Canadian made hockey stick and jar of maple syrup.

INFLATABLE RAFTS FOR CARS

Mark Twain once said, “Everyone complains about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it.” Liberals seem to believe that storms have gotten much worse in recent years due to “climate change”. Could that be because they skipped out on the Sunday School lesson about Noah’s Ark? Did they never hear of the forty days and forty nights that proceeded The Great Flood? It seems that we’ve simply reached a period where it rains much harder and in very localized areas than it did 100 years ago, so that now many places are experiencing “100 year floods” every week or two. Is it time for everyone to break out their cubit measuring sticks and start constructing an ark next to the backyard patio? We’ve got a better idea. Using a similar technology to the air bags that are standard equipment on cars let’s have an inflatable raft installed in every automobile. When built-in sensors detect water rising to the base of the chassis the raft will automatically inflate. This would provide almost every family safe transportation out of any flooded areas, or across rivers where the bridge has gotten washed out. People who have never bought into the American Dream of owning their own cool car or pick-up truck can have an inflatable kayak installed on their bicycle or take their chances with the Staten Island Ferry. Good luck with that.

INTERSTATE WATER PIPELINES

At the same time that activists are blaming “climate change” for floods they also believe it is causing more droughts. We might say, “Hey make up your mind!” but here’s a solution that solves both problems: Build pipelines down the median strips of the interstate highway system. Once these are in place it will be a simple matter of draining excess water from flooded areas to those that are suffering from dry mouth.

AIR CONDITIONING

Another frequent complaint of “climate change” activists is that more and more places are suffering from extreme heat waves. Of course, these episodes always occur in the middle of the summer. (Funny how we never hear them complaining that it’s too hot in Minnesota in January.) The solution to this problem has been around since 1902 when a guy named Willis Carrier invented the air conditioner and made it possible to have summer movie blockbusters, and suburban sub-divisions in the middle of a desert. In fact, Phoenix, Arizona is a perfect example of how to survive extreme heat in style. You wake up in your air-conditioned house, go to work in your air-conditioned vehicle, work out at your air-conditioned health club and shop at your air-conditioned mall. If you feel too hot just turn down the thermostat a degree or two or take a shower (with water piped in from the Midwest flooding). There’s no reason why these heat waves need to be a problem for anyone who never goes outside.