(Update: I am working on a debut comedy skit with all the fixings for this blog. Coming soon. Meanwhile . . .)

What don’t they get?

I’m talking about climate-change deniers.

No, I’m not talking about the capitalist piggies who downplay it. We know why they’re doing it. They’re not dumb. No, strike that. They’re the worst kind of dumb. They are the bigger piggies (See The Beatles) feeding at the trough who don’t give a damn about the kids of today. Those piggies are beyond redemption. It’s me, me, me for them. Oink, Oink, Oink . . . snort.

The deniers I’m thinking about in this paragraph are the rank and file, the rats in the race who adamantly deny climate change in social media comments all over the place. Or “the little piggies” (See The Beatles) who serve the bigger piggies by downplaying climate change. It’s all a conspiracy to them. A hoax perpetuated by “leftists.”

What’s their motive?

I suppose I could go down the conspiracy path here. Maybe they are working for the bigger piggies, paid to spread disinformation. Maybe they are the bigger piggies posing as little piggies. Gotta keep their troughs full.

I suppose the media are partly to blame. Climate change hasn’t received the coverage it deserves, IMO, with some exceptions (including the paper I work for). Most news outlets have been slow to tweak to the fact that the future of the human race is really at stake here. How many news outlets had the latest developments from COP26, the climate conference in Glasgow, on their front/home pages yesterday? It may be the most important conference in mankind’s history. How many are even covering it inside their publications?

Too many are carrying on like it’s business as usual, like the Earth can host mankind for another billion years. It can’t. We’ll be lucky if modern civilization still exists in 10 years.

True, some of the those news outlets may be run by the bigger piggies. It’s not the editors’ faults. They need their jobs. They’ve got mouths to feed. They are afraid to push back against the bigger piggies.

But climate change will end up on their front pages sooner or later, when it comes to their towns. When it destroys the bigger piggies’ troughs. It’s a little like the aging process. We live with a devil-may-care attitude, or in the bigger piggies’ case high on the hog, until we’re suddenly facing 69 and the number that comes after it. Now we get it. Now we hope for life after death, and that we aren’t reborn here.

I dunno. Maybe I’m wrong. A lot of the media owners are old farts. I guess once a big piggy, always a big piggy.

Still, the old farts, i.e. politicians, attending COP26 seem to get it, even if they are using private jets to get to Scotland.

Reports the Telegraph, as seen on the Montreal Gazette site: “Small executive jets emit 10 times more greenhouse gases per passenger than scheduled flights, taking just six hours to generate as much CO2 as the average person does in a year. Environmental campaigners have reacted with fury, saying many of the journeys could have been undertaken on regular passenger aircraft, or even by train in some cases.”

I’m thinking Greta Thurnberg is right: “It’s all blah, blah, blah.”

The bigger piggies are good at that. That’s all they ever do, when they’re not feeding at the trough. (More on that in my comedy debut post, which maybe I should call The Second Coming seeing that the first attempt was censored.) They don’t actually work like the little pigges do.

Do I sound bitter about the bigger piggies who have brought modern civilization to the precipice? Yes, I do, of course. I share Greta’s outrage. How dare they!

I suppose there is a sense of futility among many piggies big and small. The damage is done, with the worst of its effects still to come. The last headline on every media outlet’s website may be “The sky is falling.” Or “The end is here.”

Or “– 30 –.”

We used to use that one at the end of typewritten stories back in the day, for the typesetters. Some newspapers have used it for their final editions as they went out of business.

I’ll no doubt be retired and probably dead by the time the media are forced to sign off for good. Unless I’m back in a new body, toiling tirelessly behind the scenes in some newsroom with visions of social justice dancing in my head again.

If I get to write the last headline, maybe I’ll go with “The Big 30.”

That works.

— 30 —