I had some guy email me a link claiming that global warming was over, simply because it appears that things are getting colder out. I am prepared to admit that lately, it has been cold, and there seems to be quite a few parts of the world that are snowed under, or dealing with extreme temperatures. While statistical anomalies do not a trend make, I’d like to propose that we completely forget about global warming, or climate change, and focus instead on the fact that as a species, we collectively suck ass.

Let us deal with the fact that as a species, we are utterly without thought, completely short sighted, sloth-like, and reprehensible. We suck. All of us.

When plastic and garbage washes up by the ton on unihabited islands in the Pacific, we suck. When we catch apex predators like sharks and whales and tuna and leave thousands of other fish dead in the water as by-catch, we suck. When modern nations fish whales and consider it “scientific research” as a ruse, we suck. When we mow down millions of acres of rain forest to grow crops for bio fuels and deplete our world’s biodiversity, we suck. When our polar regions no longer freeze over and rather than fix it, we argue about who gets to drive their ships through the open ice, we suck. When millions of salmon fail to show up for the yearly spawn in British Columbia because we probably killed them all off years ago because of salmon farming, we suck. When countries dig huge underground facilities for creating fissile material for nuclear reactors and claim that it’s for power generation, we suck.

The absolute best part is that we are leaving all of these problems to our kids who will be saddled with a world of hurt and will lack the resources to fix it. It makes me sick. We talk about bacon, and driving around like it makes not one teat of difference. It does.

We suck. All of us. Fix these problems and we’ll probably have a shot at also remedying “the changes” we’re doing to push climate change along. The world is NOT going to get along fine, and nature is NOT going to recover if we keep this up. Scientists believe that the rate of extinction is now one thousand times faster than it was a hundred years ago. Nature’s way? Baloney. Explain to me how destroying pristine nature to build golf courses is nature’s way.

Want an example of short sightedness close to home? My neighbour drives this big yellow monstrosity, a big Ford 4×4. My other neighbour, who lives a few houses down, drives a black Hummer H2. These two guys are good friends. All weekend long, they drive from each other’s house, back and forth, because they are too damn lazy to walk. It creates no end of aggravation and frustration to me.

Oh — If some big obese dude puts down his double fisted cheeseburgers long enough to want a second seat on an airplane for free, I should get a discount because I can cram my skinny ass into just one, right?

I’m ranting, now, I realize. But hey, 2010 is the year of the Rant.