This is a advertisement around Washington DC alerting people to the dangers of global warming.
"I'm Too Hot"
And
"9 of the 10 hottest years have occurred since 2000."
Wait a second, for some (or many) a little extra heat may be considered a good thing especially if you live up north with generally freezing cold and miserably snowy winters.
So don't just tell us about it getting hotter, but tell us how hot is it actually going to get and what will happen when it does--melting glaciers, rising oceans and catastrophic flooding of cities, weather abnormalities and violent natural disasters, and so on.
We need to move on to the substance of this.
Just like with the national debt, we keep talking about it going up (and up).
Well what's so bad about that if we can just print some more greenbacks and pay for more stuff, maybe it's a good--or great--investment in our country and future?
Here again, the message that isn't getting out clearly is what is going to happen when the debt becomes unsustainable and printing or devaluing dollars will not solve the problem and may actually exasperate it by creating run-away inflation, a downgraded or junk credit rating, and higher debt payments possibly tanking our economy and people's savings.
Yeah, we don't want to cause a panic.
But shielding people from vital information on the dangerous paths we are on will only lead to going further down into the abyss of non-action and potential for cascading calamity.
Let's face it--it's unpopular to talk anything doom or gloom--financial crises or natural disasters or especially anything with WMD--but if we aren't the adults in the political room, who will be?
For once, I'd love a leader who tells it straight, who helps us face our own worst nightmares, and actually gets us back on track again, rather than keeps the wool pulled over our eyes for another term or two.
Leadership is lost in rosy glasses, vote counting, pundits called upon to obscure the truth from the people, keeping a false calm, and creating wildly inflated legacies.
These motives for now are stronger than the determination to deal with the threats we face, but not forever, and then the pendulum will most abruptly swing in the other direction, precariously late for the ensuing global effects. ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)