Global Warming?
Akiko Battles ManBearBoar
. . . and loses.
Towards the end of the story, Steve tells Akiko she can’t check out yet because her work with Greenpeace isn’t done. Akiko replies:
“Forget about the planet, Moonpie. It’s not in peril. Earth has already experienced five mass extinctions. Humans will fry with the fucking baboons, but the planet will keep orbiting the sun long after we’re gone. Eddie is dead, humanity is doomed, and I’m done.”
Akiko is polarizing. Readers commented on her more than anyone else. I wonder how many of them loved or hated her based on her Greenpeace views . . .
Can’t Convince Them, Can’t Outlast Them
There are still human beings who actively deny global warming. Yesterday, as we left the Denver Broncos practice field, we passed a hot saintly young wife in a red Lincoln Navigator parked with the engine running. Evidently, she had become way too hot and popped into her rolling air conditioner to wait for her husband. It reminded me of a recent trip to the grocery store: three different cars idled empty in the parking lot while their cool owners browsed the produce department for cucumbers.
I’ve had relevant conversations with some of my own cuddly climate deniers. “Global warming? Don’t be absurd!” I once thought our grandparents and parents would soon die, making way for enlightenment. They don’t give a hang about the planet because they are leaving it, right? Now I realize that the thinking is not only deeply embedded in my own generation, but has been efficiently passed down to the next as well. Tick tock, tick tock.
The Earth is Flat
Global warming is our generation’s version of the “earth is flat” kerfuffle. In the 17th century, Galileo Galilei claimed that earth was a round sphere circling the sun. His heliocentric model contradicted the church’s teachings which put man as God’s creation at the center. In 1633, the Inquisition tried Galileo for heresy because of his views based on mere science. God prevailed: Galileo recanted his heretical views and spent the final nine years of his life under house arrest.
In 1992, Pope John Paul II declared that the church had erred about its center-of-the-center verdict, but fell just short of a formal pardon for poor Galileo.
All Part of the Plan
Revelation 8:7 prophesizes global warming:
The first angel sounded. And hail and fire followed, mingled with blood, and they were thrown to the earth. A third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.
For the problem of global warming, the biblical solution (as it applies to the cool cucumbers and hot lady) is to get yourself raptured. Only the sinners who are left behind will suffer.
Jesus Take the Wheel
My favorite Akiko quotes are simmering in the outtakes. Here’s one of a few remaining rants that made it to print: Akiko’s discussion with Steve in chapter 6, Let’s Talk Trash:
“You asked how I knew the Munchkin, and I’m explaining, so don’t interrupt me. Hawaii sits just east of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. As a result, plastic from all over the world washes up on our shorelines. That happens because you mainlanders can’t be bothered to recycle. Meanwhile, I come to the beach every Saturday and pick up your fucking trash.”
There was something about the way Akiko chucked her “fucking trash” sentence like a javelin that reminded Steve of his grandmother who had mostly raised him. She was abrasive, loving, and a laugh a minute when he wasn’t in the line of fire. She had passed away while he was at college, which was, at the time, the saddest event of his life. Although Akiko’s rant about trash was different, her inclination to bless a total stranger with insightfully tailored insults and hostile vulgarities was eerily reminiscent.
As Akiko continued to rant, Steve thought back to a moment that took place during his final summer in Oklahoma. While Steve hid beside the truck and pumped gas, his grandmother stood on the other side of the flatbed farm truck in a house dress and slippers, holding her red plastic cup of Jack and Coke. With her free hand, she stabbed a finger towards the gas station attendant, who had played tight end with Steve in high school, and told him in colorful language how she felt about his broken air hose.
Akiko was still talking. “I want you to think about that, the next time you’re rolling around the heartland in your F-150, listening to some ‘Jesus Take the Wheel’ music, before tossing that Coke bottle out your pickup truck window.”
Go back to About a Perfect Finish