Feed me, Seymour!

2/9/12, No. 20

@Jaxonpool _______

Feed me, Seymour!  Jan. 26th your front page headline read “Planting maps reflect more heat: Coldest day of year not so cold, USDA says.”

Since 1990, Florida has warmed up so much that the orange-colored hot zones appropriate for tropical plants are creeping northward.

Hope for liberals! the rising ocean soon will inundate the state, turning it blue.

Like other places, Jacksonville has experienced increasing temperatures and in the near future will join the extreme tropical planting zone.

Jacksonville: Florida’s new hot spot!

The article attributed this creeping-planting-zone phenomenon to global warming. Some people say we should try to stop global warming. I disagree. We shouldn’t do anything to end sunspots because they will allow us to begin growing bananas and coffee here at home.

Sunspots: kind of like solar acne

From an environmentalist’s perspective, this is a good thing: growing bananas and coffee here will reduce our global footprint.

I am an autodidact, and I have studied the issue. Experts do not seem interested in tackling global warming by reining in sunspots. Instead, they insist we re-engineer the world’s economy to stop emitting hydrocarbons into the atmosphere. Anyone with common sense can see that this agenda is hopelessly Quixotic. This would mean getting everyone to agree to lowering their standard of living just a wee bit, like, say, making one less run in the car for alcohol, or mixing fewer batches of methamphetamine per week, or giving up IPhones. 

Making fewer alcohol runs or meth batches or going without IPhones is not going to happen. It would be easier to deal with the sunspots. Of course, anyone traveling to the sun to treat one would be incinerated into a crispy critter. However, getting people to voluntarily lower their standard of living even a tiny bit could be equally dangerous. Someone could die getting in the way of people speeding to the liquor store or distracting a meth maker at the wrong moment. And saying anything critical about Steve Jobs and Apple could be equally dangerous. After all, Apple equals knowledge; and knowledge equals power; and power equals protecting one’s IPhone the way a dog guards a bone. It’s simple math.

However, we need neither take away IPhones nor deal with sun spots. As this photo history of solar activity (below) illustrates, the sun has good years and bad. In 2001, the sun was hotter than usual. It had a fever. Ten years it took for that extra heat to travel 93 million miles to reach the earth, 2011 being our planet’s hottest year on record. But look ahead: in 2006, the sun practically went dark. The lesson? In 2016, prepare to layer up!

Wouldn’t this make an attractive necklace?

In the meantime, global warming will be an up-trend surprise. That’s a Wall Street euphemism for saying the glass is half full. It’s a matter of spin. Bring Apple to Jacksonville!

Adjectives use fewer letters than adverbs

For Jacksonvillians, this means going with the flow. The air flow, that is. Make the best of a bad situation—like living in a furnace. Many community urban gardens have sprung up in Jacksonville, especially in Springfield, and we are going to see a new set of crops thriving in these plots.

One Springfield community garden on 8th Street: the humdrum vegetables of yesteryear

Guavas of Mexico, Central America, and northern South America will begin to appear. And mangoes—once mainly grown in India, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, and Thailand—soon will replace peas and carrots, releasing a flood of color:

Springfield community gardens in the future*

The rooftop garden of Breaking Ground in Murray Hill will have to accommodate to warmer temperatures.

Breaking Ground’s garden on a roof

What shall it be? Before global warming, one had to go to Colombia, Ecuador, Perú, Cuba, or Nicaragua to see the various forms of mamón, but now we will need look no further than Murray Hill.

Mamón, not mammon

Moreover, as Jacksonville moves into an extreme tropical zone, plant growing times will speed up, bringing back memories of Jack and the Beanstock:

Click here

Before global warming, the Cummer Museum and Gardens in Riverside was looking stodgy.

The definition of twee

But now, with a little extra heat, the Cummer Gardens will see new flora like this:

Florida: the world’s newest Banana Republic

Up until now, working at the Nemours Community Garden has been relatively safe and peaceful:

Nemours Community Garden

However, in the future volunteers will have to show proof of health insurance coverage.

Alternative link

Extreme tropical plants already can be found at the Tree Hill Nature Center in Arlington:

Tree Hill Nature Center

But with the added heat, we may witness strange scenes such as this:

Elephant dung makes excellent manure!

The Bold Bean Coffee Roastery in Riverside / Avondale would not need to purchase beans from faraway.

Bold Bean Coffee Roastery

Instead, the global footprint could be reduced by growing beans on the premises (Seattle: let’s see you do that!):

Juan Valdez transfers to Jacksonville

Finally, having only recently opened, the Jacksonville Arboretum & Gardens in Ft. Caroline will have much to gain.

With a few degrees increase in Fahrenheit, the Jacksonville Arboretum could assume a unique character:

Our own jurassic park

Some people say I am missing the point, that climate change will bring about devastating alterations in the weather such as more frequent and more powerful hurricanes and tornadoes as well as rising oceans that eventually will inundate low-lying coastal areas. I don’t know about that, but I do understand that measures will have to be taken so that the extreme tropical plants don’t take over.

And now, like any good Bollywood movie, every Letter to the Editor should take a moment and burst into song. Even if the musical number has absolutely nothing to do with whatever surrounds it.

Alternative link #1 / Alternative link #2 / Alternative link #3

So, with a little Wall Street spin, we can convert what some Nervous Nellie’s are calling an environmental catastrophe into an up-trend surprise. And then we will be relieved of any perceived obligation to do something about the sunspots. Or the hydrocarbons saturating the atmosphere, for that matter. With Wall Street spin, we all sleep better, believing nothing needs to be done.

Sincerely,
Lemule Blogiver