Clouds of Despair

I must again offer heartfelt apologies for my inattention to this site and the subsequent significant lapse in time between posts. I could offer a litany of excuses, many of which would bear up under intense scrutiny but I have neither the time nor the energy to do so. As such, I will simply cast myself upon the altar of your patience and understanding and I will gainfully press on. I owe it to you, my loyal readership, for without my musings you are somehow unfulfilled, like a rudderless ship, seeking a port of call yet finding only the inky blackness of the lonely, raging sea. Therefore, I tell you that the lighthouse of my musings beckons you to sail in and moor your vessel. All is well.

Actually, in my world, all is never well. Let me preface my remarks by saying that I have, with utmost determination, avoided political ranting and raving these many months in this blog because, truthfully, I could put pen to paper forever on the waywardness of government and never reach the bottom. However, allow me the latitude (since it is my blog) to foray into the political arena for a moment: have we lost our collective minds? The terrible plights of our society are as numerous as the sand of the seashore, everything from deficits to taxation without representation to bridges falling down. It all matters nothing when held to the light of one singular plague, worse than any other that threatens to rend the very fabric of our being and alter the very fiber of our lives: cows, moose, their dreaded bodily functions, and global warming. In what has to be the proverbial “short straw” of the research world, a study of moose by researchers in Norway found that a grown moose can produce and emit 2,100 kilos of methane a year (equivalent to the amount of carbon dioxide caused by an 8,077 mile car trip) through, and I quote the newspaper here, “its belching and farting”. Huh? In the same newspaper earlier this summer appeared an article placing culpability for our rapidly deteriorating climate squarely on the backs of (no pun intended) cows, calling them “methane making machines”. Citing that world agriculture is responsible for 37% of global methane emissions, the paper indicated that much of this gas comes from “the burps of ruminating animals such as cows and sheep”. According to the paper, scientists are now investigating new plant breeding methods to develop new diets for livestock with the goal of causing the cows stomach to work more efficiently in digesting its fodder and reduce global methane emissions.

Now I know that global methane emissions (one of my brothers in law notwithstanding) are a monumental issue, for one needs only tarry a little while in the Panhandle of Texas to get a whiff of the problem (sorry). And I know that journalists are aching for a good story. But honestly, is the problem so large that teams of scientists must spend millions studying it and politicians and journalists spend time grandstanding about it? I mean, I’m all for protecting the environment so that young Samuel doesn’t inherit sooty, smog filled, wasteland covered in cow and moose manure but seriously…are going to expend our time and financial resources trying to make animal’s stomachs work more efficiently when they’ve been working that way since the 6th day of Creation? All for the sake of reducing a global warming issue that we aren’t even sure we are experiencing? And, the last time I checked, most of these scientists, journalists, and politicians are jetting around in gas guzzling planes and limos to tell us how cows and moose are ruining our environment? If Al Gore showed up on a bicycle to tell me that, I’d at least give him a few minutes of my time but beyond that, just go away. I can’t take the incessant colloquy on global warming anymore. I’ve got a cairn of riffraff stashed in my pantry in a garbage bin under the guise of recycling and as best I can tell, my life isn’t one iota better for having dutifully sorted and saved. In fact, it’s worse…by the time recycling pick-up day rolls around, that darned can is so full that it spills all over the floor when I open the pantry door…then I have to waste time picking it up. Of course, no one’s writing any articles about how my time, one of our rapidly dwindling natural resources, just got wasted…only about methane laced belches and farts.

I give up…the lunacy of our society has sapped every ounce of energy from my previously vibrant being. I’ll head home in my gas guzzling SUV and grill a steak while I still can still buy beef. I’m sure my grill will soon be targeted as the latest global warming offender so I’d better enjoy it while I can…until next time (and I promise it won’t be long)…happy emissions!