“I accept that changes in climate are causing ocean updrafts that draw killer sharks into the atmosphere and then drop them on populated areas, but I don’t believe human activity is the cause.”
“Out here in Oklahoma, we have the same problems that the rest of the country is experiencing, with wind-borne sharks crashing through billboards and attacking folks on their way to work and so on. We have yet to see a single study, however, that connects any of these shark conditions specifically to our local fossil-fuel industries.”
“Tree-ring studies done on petrified wood from Utah reveal six-inch-long fossilized teeth of the Megalodon, the largest shark in the history of the earth, embedded in the trunks of ponderosa-pine trees more than three hundred thousand years old—trees that lived a thousand miles from the nearest ocean! So tell me: did my S.U.V. cause that?”
How do you get through to these people? Yes, in the past sharks have rained down numerous times, flopping around on the ground and biting early humans even in their caves, for example, as portrayed in the chilling shark-attack cave paintings in Lascaux, France. Periodic showers of small but vicious Mediterranean sharks destroyed the once proud civilization of ancient Carthage. During 1816, “the year without a summer,” sharks rained on the Swiss Alps at altitudes of up to four thousand metres, ruining the vacation of Percy Bysshe Shelley and his young soon-to-be wife, Mary, and inspiring her to write her classic novel “Frankenstein vs. Jaws.” But those shark incursions into the atmosphere and onto dry land were cyclical patterns, simply a part of nature. What we are seeing today is of a whole different order of magnitude. Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, more sharks have been sucked up out of the ocean into waterspouts and similar weather phenomena than occurred in the previous three million years.
“We believe that God gave man dominion over the earth and all that is in it, with the exception of sharks, who have their own dominion, of course.”
“If there is a problem caused by our modern technology—and I’m not necessarily saying there is—then technology will find the solution. Such as what? Such as giant shotguns, firing up at the sky constantly.”
What more evidence do these people want? Ninety-seven per cent of all reputable climate scientists have shot automatic rifles and shotguns at sharks plunging through the air and along the sidewalks outside their homes, classrooms, or laboratories. These men and women are trained to value empirical data, not opinions or hysteria. Almost unanimously, they have concluded that the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas at unprecedented rates is responsible, and they warn that—LOOK OUT! [Blam blam blam blam!]
“Our family has had sharks come through our sink drain and onto our kitchen floor, nose first, with their bloody teeth snapping, on four separate occasions. But, before we act, we need better information as to why this is.”
“The shark alarmists have falsified climate-shark figures in the past.”
“If there is a moderate uptick in the likelihood of a shark falling on you in North Dakota—and I am not yet convinced that there will be—remember that it will also be good for the soybeans.”
When will they understand? And where do we go from here? Is there anything here we can build on? Gradually, over the next hundred years, Americans may adjust to sharks attacking them in their daily lives. On the other hand, they may decide that the situation is only marginally acceptable, and this will provide a basis for some kind of legislation. You can’t change people’s minds all at once. Education is the key. If there were substantially less of it, that would free up resources to make more cartridges of double-ought buckshot for when sharks are swimming up the staircase to the second floor—as they will be doing by 2021, if present trends continue. At best, that is only a temporary solution.
“We have actually had fewer sharks fall on us in the past year here in Mobile than my great-grandpa had fall on him back in 1923. Or so I’ve been told.”
“Al Gore, sharks, and Washington, D.C.—what a crew!”
“Before we go off half-cocked on the basis of a lot of junk shark-oceanography-meteorology-science, or whatever they’re calling it, let’s look the facts right in the face and admit, in regard to the alleged ‘shark attacks’ happening all over the country every day, that it is already too late to do anything. Pass the double-ought buckshot, please.” ♦
