The Men from Atlantis Communiqués

The Earth is growing warmer. Of course, you wouldn’t notice it in Minnesota, especially in December and January. In fact, Minnesota loves global warming! Unfortunately, the rest of the world seems to be opposed to it, especially the area that Algore dwells in.

So what causes global warming? Who cares. Asking that question is like standing around watching your house burning down and arguing with your roommate about who left the stove on. What you should be doing is putting the fire out and worry about assigning blame later, assuming you manage to save anything and still have a place left to live when the ashes settle!

There are two possibilities here, the first is that global warming is natural, and this has, in fact, occurred more than once in the past. The second is that it was caused by humans putting lots of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for the last couple centuries since the industrial revolution began. If it was the Earth and nature, you can blame the Earth and chastise naughty mother nature until the cows come home, but they won’t listen to you and don’t give a rats ass what you may think about the natural course of events and Earth cycles. If, on the other hand, it was human caused, The industrialized nations and by extension the entire human race are to blame. So what are you going to do; put the whole human race in jail for their witless trashing of the atmosphere? Are you going to dig up the moldering corpses of those barons of industry who started the whole thing a couple of hundred years ago and put them in jail? Perhaps their descendants should be held liable and made to pay for the cleanup, as well as the oil companies and oil rich nations whose greed and stupidity caused the problem and help to perpetuate it to this moment?

Clearly, assigning blame, though fun, does nothing to solve the problem. Seizing the assets of, and putting the fat cats who made billions of dollars (at the expense of the Earth and all its inhabitant) to death on the impalement stake and broadcasting it on pay-per-view television could be one option. One could then spend the accruing funds to clean up the atmosphere. It would make many people feel that justice had finally been served to these Earth-raping scumlords, but even this would still fall short of solving the problem.

Also, the truth about greenhouse gases point to the fact that  methane is many times worse than carbon dioxide as a heat trapping agent. Cars aren’t producing it and the frozen methane trapped at the bottom of the ocean (methane hydrate) has not yet reached a temperature high enough to cause it’s release. In fact it seems that the majority of methane being released into the atmosphere has a simple, well documented cause. It comes from cattle. The Earth has never in recorded history been the home of more bovines than now. These cud-chewing burger factory’s produce tremendous amounts of methane gas courtesy of their four stomachs and cellulose-dissolving digestive tracts, which are then released as flatulence. Cow farts are the culprit that currently threaten the atmosphere, and by extension, all life on earth!

There are two easy ways to deal with this problem. The first is to eat more burgers and steak at a rate that outstrips the ranchers ability to breed and replace the cattle, thus reducing their numbers. The drawback to this approach is that ranchers are likely to increase breeding to keep up with demand and deforest more land for the cattle to graze upon. The second approach is somewhat more high-tech, but the bugs could be worked out with a little brainpower and research. This solution is to stop the methane from being released into the atmosphere in the first place. No, I’m not talking about bovine butt-plugs, since cows need to take a dump on a regular (and unscheduleable) basis. I propose a system of mobile methane collectors! These CFCU’S (cow fart collection units) would resemble a scuba tank- like apparatus strapped to the cows back with a funnel and tube attached to the base of the cows tail. When the bovine brapps, a methane sensor activates a simple vacuum pump which draws the cow fart into the CFCU and stores it. When the tank is full, or at regular intervals, such as when the cow comes to a feed lot, the tank is attached by a simple tube at its release valve, and the stinky contents are siphoned off to a CCFCU (central cow fart collection unit). Again, when this tank is full, or at regular intervals, a CFCT (cow fart collection truck) rolls up to the ranch and hauls away its payload of natural gas to be sent to market as a clean-burning non-fossil fuel.

Dairy cattle could be even easier to outfit, since they don’t wander around and a dome and suction system could be installed over the barn. And cows, like all animals except humans, are lactose-intolerant once they reach adulthood. mix old, spoiled, spilled or curdled milk in with their feed to create an even larger harvest of natural gas;  a bovine butt-blast bonanza!

Ultimately, the one way to stop cow fart production immediately is to purchase land and not allow any cattle ranching to occur on it. One area that you may be absolutely, 100% certain that this will never occur, is within the city limits of Atlantis! So stop the cow fart catastrophe now and buy an acre or more of land in Atlantis!

Hugh Mann