A “Heated” Situation

 

John lived at the North Pole. More than a thousand miles from the nearest town, he spent all of his time gathering data on global warming for the US Department of Unusual Weather. John’s house was at the top of the largest glacier in the world, and his research was vital. Several years before, the Gulf of Mexico had reached the necessary height to completely flood the entire city of New Orleans. More recently, fires had destroyed much of the west, including a large portion of Los Angeles. In Antarctica, several species of Penguin had become extinct because of the change in their climates, and economies of areas dependent on ski tourism had collapsed.

As John stepped out of his house, he slipped and fell on the melting ice.

“Ouch!” he yelped, rubbing his knee. He pulled out his tape measure and just like every other day, measured the distance from the door of his house to the side of the Glacier.

“Man, four whole inches since yesterday,” he muttered to himself. “At this rate, the house won’t last long.” He walked inside to do his dreaded calculations. After just a few minutes of dropping figures into a spreadsheet, John stood up and phoned his supervisor back in the states.

“Larry?”

“Who is this?”

“It’s John Bigly. At the North Pole.”

“Oh, sure, you get anything yet?”

“Actually, yeah. I think I finally have enough data to convince the President that there’s a problem.

“Yeah, that George H.R.W. Bush has really been a problem for us all. You would have thought that we’d learned our lesson and not elected another Bush.”

“No kidding. Anyway, I’m guessing that we’ve got three months before eighty of the hundred largest cities in the world are under water.”

“Jesus, I didn’t realize it was that bad,”

“Yeah, Its about 40 degrees here now. About thirty years ago it was an average of 40 degrees below zero.”

“Man, how soon can you get back to Washington?”

“Probably late tonight. I’ll call you when I get in.”

 

Paul O’Neill looked out the window of the plane.

“Something on your mind?” asked a woman sitting next to him.

“Sort of. I’m just thinking that this whole global warming thing isn’t really as big a problem as some people think it is.”

“I know what you mean. Hi, I’m Elaine Chao.”

“Paul O’Neill.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m an inventor. I just made an incredible type of hairspray that can be used on animals as well as humans, but all this global warming nonsense is making people want to buy other brands, and forcing me to change my formula.”

“How does global warming affect people’s choices in hair products?”

“Well, it’s really because my current formula only works with aerosol as the propellant, which happens to speed up the global warming and drive away customers.” At that moment, the voice of the flight attendant came on.

“We are now beginning our descent into Washington’s Regan National Airport. Please stay in your seat until we are securely into the gate and the captain has turned off the fasten seatbelt sign.”

Once into the gate, Paul made his way to the luggage carousel.

“Paul O’Neill?”

Before he could answer, the man said. “I’m from the White House. We already have your luggage. Please follow me.”

 

 

When John stepped out of the airport in Washington, he was hit by a wave of heat and almost collapsed. It was nearly 80 degrees in the middle of the night in February, and John was used to 40 being hot. The temperature threw him off for a minute, but finally he realized he would have to catch a cab. Maybe I should call up Larry first? he thought. He walked back into the air conditioning, pulled out his cell phone and dialed Larry.

“Larry?”

“You in Washington?”
“Yeah.”

“At the airport?

“Yup.”

“Someone will be there for you.”

“What do you mean?” John said. But Larry had already hung up. I guess I’ll get a cab, he thought. As he started to walk towards the taxis, a man ran up behind him.

“John Bigly?”

“Yeah, that’s me. Did Larry send you?”

“Please follow me sir.”

“Where to?”

“To the White House sir.”

“What! I haven’t prepared a presentation yet. And at one in the morning? What is this?”

“Just come with me sir.”

 

“Mr. President?”

“Yes?”

“We have an emergency meeting.”

“With who?”

“You know those people who keep telling us the world is going to end?”

“You mean the people who aren’t glad that it’s warm all year round? That is most defiantly not worth getting out of bed for.”

“Sir, Global warming is a serious issue and every member of your cabinet has agreed that this issue requires immediate attention. They are all awake downstairs and getting quite tired of waiting for you. This is the third time I have woken you up and had the exact same conversation. You need to get up now.”

“Jesus Christ, gimmie a break, you know how much I need my beauty sleep.”

“Sir …”

“Okay, here I come.”

 

The president walked into the Roosevelt Room in his pajamas. “Welcome to the White House” he mumbled.

“Thank you, Mr. President. I am Larry King with the Department of Unusual Weather. We are all here today to inform you of what we have discovered about the current Global Warming situation. From our research, we estimate that within the next three months, the bulk of the United States will be flooded.”

Before the President could express his shock, the next speaker jumped in. “Jesus, I never realized the gravity of this situation. Well, I’m Paul O’Neill from NASA. We’ve been doing research into ways to escape this flooding but have come up with nothing good. We considered underwater cities, but they’re too expensive and would take too long to set up. We thought about going to Mars, because we already have a small base established up there, but it is just not practical. Mars is too cold to have people living there. We also looked into stopping global warming, but we just don’t have the technology. The only thing we can do is run away from it.”

“Wow. I was hoping you guys would have something figured out. I’m John Bigly. I’ve been doing research at the North Pole; I was basically the guy who found out just how bad our problem is.”

“Well, it sounds like you guys have nothing conclusive and no solution anyway so…”

“Wait a minute Mr. President,” said Paul, “I think I have it figured out. On the plane ride here, I sat next to a woman who made hairspray for a living. She said that aerosol, which is used as a propellant in hairspray, will speed up global warming.”

“How is that going to help us?”

“Please, let me finish. The reason we can’t go to Mars is because it’s too cold. If we could start the global warming process there, it would be inhabitable and we would have a place to escape the Earth. NASA also has plenty of large passenger spacecraft capable of transporting the entire world to Mars in the next couple of months if we started the move immediately.”

“So what do you want me to do about this?” stuttered the President.

“We’ll need you to issue an executive order by the morning,” said O’Neill. “We need to get crews on Mars spraying …” but before he could finish he was cut off by one of the President’s aides.

“We have this under control. The operation will be in progress shortly. Thank you for the information.”

 

Norman Mineta was awakened by the phone ringing. Who could this be calling at two thirty in the morning? he wondered sleepily.

“Hello?”

“Norman Mineta?”

“Yeah, whaddaya want.”

“I’m calling from NASA. I understand that you are a crop duster?”

“Can’t this wait ‘til morning?”

“Well, I believe that it’s morning already and no it can’t wait. The fate of the world rests upon your shoulders.”

“What are you talkin’ ‘bout?”

“You are one of many chosen to bring planes to Mars and spray aerosol over the entire planet. Be ready to leave in two hours. Your plane has already been picked up and fitted for the Mars environment.”

“Hey!” But before he could finish he heard a click as the mysterious caller hung up.

 

As Norman was standing in line to get coffee at the Mars base, he leaned over to the man next to him. “Man, I didn’t believe that guy on the phone ‘til I checked and saw my plane was gone.”

“You got the same call? God, I never thought I’d leave Earth. Even though they were talking about colonies on Mars within the next decade, who would have thought? And global warming? I thought that was a joke.”

“May I have your attention Please! I am Mel Martinez, and I am in charge of the Mars base at which you are guests. All of your planes are outside, and you will all be given special thermal suits to deal with the extreme cold. The ice caps have an average temperature of 80 degrees below zero. Our goal is to raise that to the 40 degrees below zero that is normal on Earth at the poles. Good luck, and be careful, because it will be tricky to rescue you if you crash out here.”

 

Hmmm. A month that starts with oct. January? no no, February? no, Mar… His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. “Yes?” As the President’s secretary walked in he put down his crossword puzzle. “What is it?” he asked.

“Mr. President, it has been reported that after three days of spraying aerosol on Mars, the temperature is suitable for Humans. We are starting to bring people up, randomly selected from randomly selected cities. We already have several expertly planned cities that are being built as we speak. We don’t want to make the same mistakes on Mars that we made on Earth. People are given several regions to choose from as places to live, and each has been getting equal numbers of people, even the ice caps at the poles. Your residence will be ready by the end of next week.”

“Thank you. Will I still be President up there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cool.”

 

Bob House opened up the door to his home on the northern pole of Mars about a year after the evacuation of earth. He made his way towards the mailbox, but as he reached it, he slipped and fell on the melting ice.

“Ouch! Wow, it is really slippery out here. This could be wonderful, before too long we’ll be able to play baseball out here. What great luck!”