Lou scares the shit outta a guy

[Gregg Parrish <Gregg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect wrote:

> (New York City has just declared an Environmental Emergency. It has been
> over 96 degrees for the past 3 days and there are deep worries about a
> blackout. My building has shut down half the elevators and urged tenants to
> keep electricity use to a minimum. The heat wave has thrown maintenance for
> a loop at Columbia University, as air conditioners--normally not turned on
> before June--are not ready for use. Never has the university seen it so hot
> in early May. My department was let out early and I took the opportunity to
> go running my normal 4 miles in Central Park a couple of hours early. After
> completing my route, I am drenched in sweat and leaving the park, where I
> catch the eye of a short, bearded, rather perplexed looking middle-aged man.)
>
> HIM: With the weather like this, what's the summer gonna be like.
>
> ME: A season in hell?
>
> HIM: What's going on?
>
> ME: (Pointing to a string of cars waiting at a red light at the entrance to
> the park). That's what's going on. They're causing global warming.
>
> HIM: Oh yeah, pollution.
>
> ME: Actually, not pollution at all. It's carbon dioxide, the normal output
> of an internal combustion engine. When it hits the atmosphere, it causes a
> greenhouse effect, raising the temperature.
>
> HIM: That's crazy.
>
> ME: Only if you think that the capitalist system is crazy. General Motors
> depends on car sales to make profits. The more cars that are sold, the
> hotter it gets. We don't just have to worry about the heat. We also have to
> worry about a new outbreak of West Nile Encephalitis from the mosquitoes
> that survived an abnormally hot winter. Or about getting cancer from the
> Malathion the city used to try to kill them.
>
> HIM: And we get stuck with two nobodies running for president.
>
> ME: We don't need good candidates. We need a revolution.
>
> (He smiled and waved as I trotted off back to my apartment.)
>
> Louis Proyect
> Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/