The Age of Stupid has arrived

By Nury Vittachi

THANKS for all the mail and ideas about pointless world records. I was definitely wrong about bra-related world records.

 

This is clearly a good choice of subject for generating interest and not pointless at all. Definitely worth a follow-up.

Well, you live and learn, That’s the life of reporters, I guess: we are always delivering information to an audience which actually is smarter and more knowledgeable than the journalists ourselves.

Actually, this became particularly clear to me with a recent assignment.

“Write a piece about the disaster in Australia,” a magazine editor says to me.

“No worries, mate,” I reply.

So I look up a news website to find material to do what journalists call "in-depth background research" (or, "cut and paste").

I find two headlines:

"Drought triggers inferno in Australia" and

"Deluge triggers floods in Australia".

I phone a friend in Sydney. "I understand that you guys are on fire and drowning at the same time," I say.

"Yeah," she replies. "That's normal round here."

"I don't want to sound like an insensitive idiot, but can't you just use the extra water to put out the fire?" I asked.

"You insensitive idiot," she replied. "Australia is big. It has the same surface area as the planet Jupiter, or Rupert Murdoch's wallet, whichever is larger. The flood is precisely one quintillion kilometers away from the fire."

I asked her what caused the fire. She replied: "Global warming."And the flood? "Global warming."

*
I have been making a list of things for which global warming has been blamed. It now includes fires, floods, droughts, freezes, thaws, heat waves, cold spells, kidney stones, stock market crashes, male pattern baldness, American Idol, obesity, and the flopping of a soufflé made by a friend of mine last Sunday.

Could all these things really be the fault of global warming? Apparently, Yes. It is an extremely complex effect which touches literally everything.

The truth of this is shown in a brilliant new movie called "The Age of Stupid" (a label for the current era, as seen from the year 2055). The filmmaker decided that she was so fed up of people being confused about global warming that she would explain everything so simply even journalists could understand it.

The movie isn't launched until next month, but critics are already raving about it. "Fabulously funny, heart-wrenching and bizarre", said one. But this is the really amazing thing: the director is my niece Franny, who I still think of as a tiny, freckled brat, but who I suppose must be out of diapers now.

I decided to email Franny to congratulate her. But she was busy wrestling with the movie ratings agencies over the trailer. The problem is that a person on screen, realizing that the end of the world is nigh, makes a colorful exclamation. This made the movie rating agencies nervous as to whether it was okay for children to see. "The complete annihilation of the human race is fine for under-15s, but a bad word or two is just not on," Franny explained.
*
So how does global warming cause heat waves and cold spells, bad hair days and soufflé flops? It's simple. Global warming should actually be called climate change, because individuals (and soufflés) are designed for one climate, but have to adapt abruptly to different ones which will become increasingly extreme.

Like most genius-level ideas, the film's premise is simple. It shows the world in 2055: there's no snow on the Alps, London is flooded, and Australia is burning. Just as she was putting the finishing touches to the movie, Australia caught fire in real life.

*
At this point, the magazine editor mentioned at the beginning called to tell me that he had no interest in climate change and was going to fill the space with a feature on designer handbags instead.

Yes, The Age of Stupid is proceeding as expected.

Comments

[Priyantha Liyanage]

Some one should look at the possibility of banning this blog as readers are exposed to great physical danger by way of split sides!
What it does to your brain one may never know...

[Rick Sharp]

If your editor changes his mind look here..

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

A complete list of things caused by global warming.

The designer handbag article sounds interesting!

[dane]

I Think the designer handbag is also the cause for global warming....and I think Global warming is good for cold countries as we could reduce our heating cost.

[Mrs Flea]

Global warming :stories globally reported by news people running out of news;
Those stories are totally unrelated to weather:

1 There was no talk about global warming during the Cold war;
Everybody stayed home.
And news guy has something to chew on.
2 Nowadays, everybody and everything moves around the planet:
Africans flood Europe,Asians flood US of A, and americans flood Irak ( oops, they did try, but....they did not know there was sand there:they dried up with their economy in the sands of Persia)
3 The global financial crisis dried up bank accounts all the way to Asia..

As for weather related consequences :
things are not what they used to be :

Look now what happens in my Caribbean island:
When the winter temperatures were average 24 °C, we now see chilly drops to 16°C;
- Every saturday afternoon, thousands of frozen tourists escaping the cold from Canada, USA, and even Russia,disembark airplanes , producing a drop in temperature, bringing cold rain with them.
The temperature is back to normal only after they have baked in the sun for a few days.
( NOTE:I did not make a typing mistake :baking in the sun is basking in the sun to the point that a white persons turns golden brown , like bread)
- In the meantime, the temperatures have warmed up in their country,after the previous baked tourists went back home, thus changing the weather pattern.
- the same process applies to
1 frozen food from the East to the west
2 hot western music distributed in the East
3 hot girls from East Europe to the West

-The weather itself , influenced by the radio waves sent by the medias , started to do some travelling too:
we have proof:
1 The snow , which was supposed to drop in Europe, decided to go to East Asia for a vacation, but too tired to go all the way , it fell in Saudi Arabia , which was not seen before.
2 Tropical atlantic hurricanes , no longer followed their pattern ;they invited themselves in Europe around Christmas.
3 the fires in Australia ,
that's another story
it was a terrible mistake ( or was it?)
Bush's men ( recycled financers from the City ) did not know anything about cattle :
When one of them lit up a cigarette,he detonated over 2000 four- legged methane tanks called cows around him

Specialists claims that the sea level is going up ;
That's bull.....Everybody in his right mind should know that the land is getting too heavy with people, and it sinks.

Chill out !!!
Cool down !!
There is a scientific explanation :www;fromthewilderness.com/free/pandora/haarp.html

[Nury]

Thanks for the amusing comments, and thanks Rick for that link -- it's great -- it lists everything that has been blamed on global warming. Boy, it's a long list -- it even stretches all the way to World War 4.

By the way, go to www.ageofstupid.net
for a sneak peek at the movie mentioned above.

Isn't this a great planet where a young woman with no budget and a big dream can set out to make a documentary and end up making a big movie opening on screens all over her country? It's one of those events that reminds one that anything is possible if you want to do it badly enough.

[Sara]

global warming is definitely to blame for bad hair days. it s way warmer than it should be for this time of year and may hair is all frizzy and curly yuk!

I didnt take much interest in global warming but now i know what it does to a girls hair, it is definitely a top priority in my book now!!

[Nury]

Hi Sara, so what you are saying is that you don't mind the world ending, but if anything is going to affect your hairdo, then it must be REALLY important that we need to fight against.

That makes sense to me.

[Ditto]

Im a young person and I would like to make a film. Im interested in finding out how to do it.

[Ricardo]

One needs something to blame.

A friend of mine was a sergeant in the British army in WWII. In the army, one must justify asking for a replacement for any piece of kit. "I lost it", is not sufficient reason.

One of the trucks belonging to the sergeant's unit was destroyed by enemy fire. From then on any piece of kit that needed replacing and had belonged to a soldier in the unit was reported as "on the truck" and destroyed in the explosion and fire.

One day my friend, the sergeant, handed the major yet another requisition for kit lost "on the truck". The major enquired, "Sergeant, what capacity was that truck?"
"Five tons, sir."
"Well, I've calculated, based upon all of the requisitions for missing equipment, that it was carrying twenty-five tons."

You have to blame something.

[Ellen]

Yes, I agree that it is human nature to want to have something to blame, but it is my imagination that the weather has been odd recently in all sorts of places? I read Michael Crichton's book where he spends 300 pages trying to persuade us that Global Warming is not real. While there were some good points in it, the book as a whole was not convincing. Most of the arguments against the environmentalists come from the fact that they tend to simplify things, they tend to blame everything on global warming, they tend to be panicky and not very scientific. But that deosn't mean they are wrong. It's just the nature of greenies to be like that. There are now so many scientists saying that there is something happening with the planet's climate that it is no longer something one can toss aside lightly. And when money comes into the picture, governments are starting to spend money trying to keep carbon emissions down, then you know that there's a real problem at the heart of it.

[fardel]

Maybe there is no global warming, but HERE IS THE a global WARNING;
Financers can no longer fool you by selling credit.
They came up with a new scheme : they will sell you Co2 credit.
At least have been globally warned:
the characterisitcs of Co2 are
It is Invisible
Has no odor
has no taste
cannot be touched

[angela]

Global warming is a very real issue because even singaporean taitais are affected and they are taking time out from high teas and lunches to be interviewed by a news channel, complaining that the recent strong breeze assaulting this little red dot nation has caused major damage to their notoriously high hairdos. The amount of financial loss is undisclosed at the time of report but some pundits are estimating it in the hundreds of thousands of S$. The good news is that business is booming for hair salons.

[Nury]

Thanks for the interesting comments on this one.

I had to laugh at Angela's report that Singapore tai-tais ("ladies who lunch" in Western speech) are complaining that global warming is ruining their hairdos.

The end of the world is no big deal, but a ruined hairdo? Something must be done!

[Nury]

Dear Ditto, just a few years ago, it was very difficult for people to learn filmmaking skills. Cameras were expensive and film even more so.

Five years ago, a decent video camera dropped to a relatively cheap price -- a week's salary for an unskilled worker.

Today, most mobile phones have video cameras built in, so they are more or less free!

My advice is to start making films with whatever equipment you have. And then sign up for a course to teach you some professional techniques. You'll find them in all major cities.