Dear Editor:
Well, since Earth is expected to heat up by a few degrees in the next few decades, and the seas to rise a foot or – who knows? – as polar ice melts, I’m advising my clients to buy and stockpile sand. Yes, sand…while it lasts.
Already, beaches along the coast are slowly but surely being eroded away, all that sand lost forever, as Mother Ocean, pregnant with the thaw, swells her skirts. Already, in low coastal areas, drinking wells are being contaminated with salt. Sand! Still invested in the banks, are you? Fuhgetaboutit! Those corporate basements, full of vital wires and cables, will soon be flooded. Sandbags! My kingdom for a sandbag!
All an investor needs in order to start raking in the dough is a mountain of sand a few miles inshore, safe from the lapping tides, and trucks, drivers, shovels, bags, and workers. Of those there’ll be plenty, hired at low wages off breadlines as the worsening environment and economy throw more people out on the street.
Naturally, however, after the capitalist has monopolized his commodity, accumulated his golden mountain and is sitting on it, ready for business, the last thing he wants to hear of are conferences on ways to combat Global Warming: to have his investment threatened by planetary do-gooders! So he will have to make large bribes (“campaign contributions”) to keep Congress compliant. Another danger to the sand tycoon, of course, is if mankind itself, threatened globally, could lay aside its petty differences, shove such “legislators” out of the way, and unite to fight the common danger. Ah, but there’s as much chance of that as of Uncle Sam asking forgiveness of the Iraqis for his key role in their catastrophe, and making amends.
So invest.
T. Weed,
Hoboken