Imagine being a gastrotrich. I know, I know. Why imagine being a minute aquatic animal, even if you do give off a nice blue glow? Because it only lives three days... the shortest average lifespan of any animal on earth (except for those that do the ol' divided single parent thing, like amoebas and Californians). One day is 25 gastrotrich years. You, Joe or Jane Gastrotrich, were born a day ago at 3 in the afternoon. It is now 9 in the morning. You are 18 gastrotrich years old. A fat political gastrotrich is telling you that the earth is waming, and at the rate it is warming that it will be 180 degrees by 6 pm, when you are 30. Then he tells you you must give up eating 50% of your gastrotrich food in order to stop the heating. In fact, gastrotrich scientists have determined it is gastrotrich effluence that is causing this terrifying ocean heating, because the gastrotrich piss is hotter than the surrounding water, and the percentage of the gas-piss is 6 times higher than it was 3 hours ago.
Or imagine you are an ant. You have a 180 day lifespan. Each month is 12.5 human years. You were born in March. It is now May. You are 25 ant years old. A fat greasy political ant is telling you that the earth is warming, and at this rate, it will be 150 degrees in September. Ant farts, this time. No more eating those tasty crumbs or logs. You need to give them to the politcal ant, who eats more crumbs than about anyone you know. The ant scientists have confirmed that ant farts have increased in volume three times in the last 3 months. A disaster in the making
Silly, isn't it? We know that it is the sun that caused these variations with its orbital cyclicity. Stupid, silly ants. Stupid, silly gastritriches. Except... the ants and the gastrotriches would never change their behavior for something like this.
So what is the moral of the Gastrotrich and Ant? Who is smarter? Gastrotrich? Ant? Human?
Oscar Wilde said: "ALL BAD POETRY IS SINCERE".
scott
Posted by: Scott | July 31, 2007 at 03:16 PM