Essays in Idleness

Be afraid, be very afraid, gentle reader. Of volatile organic compounds! They’re gonna get your mama. Some scientist in Germany named Brasseur has done studies. So did another called Stavrakou somewhere else. And they have colleagues! At least one of those courageous people has spoken to the press. And while what they said may sound innocent enough, grab hold of your whisky. It is time to be terrified by another Unknown.

Since nitrogen dioxide, and all the tonnes of fine particulate matter, began falling out of our atmosphere (thanks to the the lockdowns that followed the Xi Batflu), surface pollutants have been piling up. Atmospheric gases have been interacting with those volatile compounds down below. And do you know what that means, my poor frightened soul?

It means that Ozone Levels — right here at the surface of our planet — have increased. And you know what Ozone did, in Antarctica. Remember that Ozone Hole? There’s hardly anything living in Antarctica today, but penguins. The Ozone must have fallen, and killed everything else. Now, down here on the surface of the planet, this Ozone may have grown by 2 percent. Or 200 percent: whichever is higher.

And worse, the summer is coming. As the sunshine increases — and it will, mark my words — there will be more and more complex reactions. You can count on it. Bwahaha!

Yes, our enemy is the clear skies! It is the invisible enemy, as Trump might say.

Call the United Nations! Demand action! Re-animate the corpus of Al Gore! We must educate the public. Only world government can save us! We need emergency task forces right away!

But while we’re waiting for the task forces to arrive, there are things that we can do. (“We’re all in this together!”) All of our household appliances are at fault. The fridge, the aircon, the coffee grinder, everything. Stovetops and ovens; hotplates too! Laptops, cellphones, personal computers: all contribute to this crisis. Cars, of course; trucks, trains, and aeroplanes: we must disable them all! Turn off all your lights, while you’re at it. Everything must be extinguished, now! And that includes candles. They’re emitting those volatile compounds for sure, snuff them out! Pour water over them!

We must shut everything down until we find a vaccine! Or forever, because we have to be safe!

Meanwhile, we must burn as much coal as possible, to restore the atmosphere’s particulate supply. This dust was what was keeping our Ozone Levels steady. Open pit mining is only a start.

It will all be worth it, if we save just one life!

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Everything written above is scientific. (“We must listen to the science!”) Note that it is also batshit insane. You may forget all about it now, for you might never hear about it again, for the rest of your life. Just concentrate on your whisky. Light another cigarette.

Alternatively, you might hear about it eighty times a day, for the next five decades.

I was, truth to tell, performing a mental exercise: trying to guess what the rats in labcoats could come up with next, together with their friends in the meejah and acadeemjah — when the trillions you are willing to pay for their advice shrinks to mere hundred billions.

For that would be a real environmental crisis, for them.