Shea came into the bedroom the other day and without any prelude she asked, “Mom, am I going to die from global warming?”
It was an moment I could have siezed, as suggested by a Twitterer, and used with, ‘Yes, unless your room is clean.’
I didn’t though. I refrained from being the consistently cruel parent.  “No baby, global warming won’t have any effect on our lives for thousands of years. THOUSANDS of years…we have nothing to worry about.”

Her question made me wikipedia ‘global warming’.  I got the definition and read it to her so she would understand. Done. Who is the best parent? I AM.

And then…

I’m flipping through my Showtime movies I have access to for 2 more months and found the Al Gore movie, “An Inconvenient Truth”  I decided to record it for two of the lamest reasons ever. ever. ever. EVER.  1.) I saw Al Gore in 2000 in pair of jeans, drinking a beer and laughing…after losing the election. He somehow managed to still find some normalcy after a defeat. I admired that.  2.) He was on a late night show talking about the movie and he was SO excited about it. The next guy that was on said, “Yeah, he was trying to show me the damn slide show in the dressing room!” and they laughed.  Al Gore had passion about something and if I could spend an hour and half watching it, what did I have to lose?

Now, I am the first to admit that I am last one on a train.  This global warming thing wouldn’t have even been something I looked twice into if my daughter had not asked me if it was something she would die from.   I’m really living my life with my head shoved REALLY far in my ass that I don’t have a clue what is going on.

Dan, my ex-husband, has always been a forward thinker since the moment I met him.  When we bought our house he wanted with great conviction to have these ugly ass ‘solar panels’ put on the top of our home. They were inexpensive and would ‘store’ energy.  They were also ugly as sin, and would not be placed on TOP of my house or anywhere near my house. I mean, come on…how are those stupid black things going to store energy? Don’t you need like a power plant to do that? Hell our gas bill was only 30 bucks a month.
I have since admitted to him, “I was wrong. You were right.” and his chest puffed up and his head got so big it exploded.

Back in the 1980’s I watched a show on how by the year 2000 that gas was going to cost us $3.00 a gallon.  At that time, that was an outrage! People were PISSED that these people would ‘project’ that something so horrible would happen.  As a young kid, I was not effected by the show, but the fact that I remember that…it means something.   There was another show that freaked me about this weird thing called ‘green house effect’ and I thought, ‘why would people be building these green houses that are messing with the world?’
And I really thought I was doing my part to ‘save the ozone’ layer by not using aerosol hairspray.

So, I watched the movie…and then I watched another…and now I am on my 5th documentary on EVERYTHING.

I’m just asking for hate mail on this one, but before you do that,  watch and research a both sides before you say, “It’s not real, it’s just hype.”  I am watching both sides and just going, “Whoa.”

Whoa.
Whooooooa.

Now I am asking myself, “DUDE, WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN AND WHY DIDN’T ANYONE SAY SOMETHING?” and what do I do to fix shit?
Maybe I can’t fix the ozone layer, but maybe being informed is enough so when I am faced with a decision I need to make, I can do it with some knowledge under my belt.
It also is hitting close to home as far as how can I change my life in a way that I can be proud of myself?

That is my brick wall that is stopping me from jumping on the train.  I’m trying people and for those of you that have been on the train and tootin’ the horn for everyone else to pay attention, I’m sorry…I wasn’t listening, but I am now.
Now to find a nice way to tell my daugther, “You might want to clean your room, because global warming is right on your ass.”