COPENHAGEN IS WORKING TOO WELL

Well, so far so good. The recently concluded Global Warming Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, attended by representatives of all the world's nations, commanded the Earth not to warm up by more than 3 degrees Centigrade. Seems to be working. Immediately following the summit, a blizzard buried the American Northeast in a foot and a half of snow, Europe was plunged into a deep freeze and even Florida is so cold that two of their most important natural resources, citrus fruit and really old people, are rapidly dying off. Apparently the earth is overreacting to being bossed around.

If this keeps up the ice caps will cease melting, the glaciers will rebound and New York City will be overrun with Polar Bears. That ought to put a huge dent in New York's homeless population, which could earn political points for Mayor-For-Life Bloomberg, but it might put a crimp in our children's plans to go sledding in Central Park. No one likes to look at their own kid as a prime candidate for the thinning of the herd, no matter how ill-equipped Peewee might be to deal with life.

Here's hoping that this cold snap is just what it is, a cold snap and not the beginning of a New Ice Age. Those Copenhagen guys will have a lot of egg on their faces if the planet freezes over for a few hundred thousand years and Wooly Mammoths roam the earth again. No one wants that. But in the intervening weeks since the big Climate Confab, the earth has gone a little nuts with the freezing and the snow drifts.

Our leaders have insulted our host planet with their self-important issuing of orders and now the planet is showing us a small sample of what it can do when it gets really pissed off. Check out all those earthquakes and volcanos in the Pacific Rim lately. Nothing says "Get off my back!" like toppled buildings, molten lava and 100-foot tidal waves. We have our clueless leaders to thank for these eruptions and if they continue we'll have to insist that they go back to Copenhagen and humbly apologize to the planet.

It's not like we've got anyplace else to go. This planet is it for us, as precarious as that is. So far, 99% of all species that ever existed on Earth are completely extinct. That we remain in the elite 1% is not necessarily a permanent state of affairs. The world is a harsh mistress, one who can be downright obstinate and contrary.

All these allegations of global warming we've been hurling at Mother Earth have obviously stung her, and a when a planet is pissed off at you, you just might find yourself on the business end of all sorts of natural catastrophes. That oxygen we all enjoy so much just might be in short supply one day, replaced by methane and sulfur. Try getting all self-righteous and making grim speeches on lungs full of that stuff.

We've heard enough from our politicians, and their track record at leading humanity leaves a whole lot to be desired, never mind trying to order the Earth around. Now they've got the damned planet mad at us. Great. It's time to get all these people back to Copenhagen to apologize to the planet and swear we'll stop stinking up the joint. We have no choice but to throw ourselves at the mercy of Mother Nature and hope she forgives our arrogance.