I know the climate change deniers have little interest, for the moment, in the fate of the world and all its inhabitants. So I try to think of ways to bring them into reality, kicking and screaming.
Here is one for them. Climate change deniers have a lot of things in common with each other - religion, payments from oil companies, ignorance of science, a love of guns, faith in unfettered capitalism, hatred of government, hatred of environmentalists, love of sport. Does that about cover it?
I reckon, in the next few years, as a result of caps on emissions and peak oil being reached, that we can say goodbye to international sports and most national sports. The idea that you could fly people and teams all over America, all over the globe, all the time, just to play sport, is so late twentieth century. Fifty years ago it was still something of a novelty to see people flying to play sport. Now it is taken for granted.
But not for long. Get ready to say goodbye to international tennis, golf, motor racing, Olympic Games. Won't be viable much longer. Nor will it be viable to send baseball, football, basketball, ice hockey teams criss-crossing the US every day.
So whatever sport and teams you support, start preparing to say goodbye to live action from individuals from the other side of the world or teams from the other side of the country.
Sad news? Well, on the plus side it should see the death of the excess commercialization of sport and a return to local leagues and local teams, community based, travelling at most by bus, and probably mainly amateur. Like our great-grandparents and even grandparents once knew and loved. Going to lead to increased community spirit I think - hard to get interested in teams full of strangers owned, bought and sold, by businessmen, and mainly interested in advertising revenue. Much better to be involved in a home grown local team. Better for the kids too.
You can say goodbye to night sport too. It doesn't seem that long ago (but then, I am an old old man) that sport was played during the day, by natural light. Of course it would be, what else. But then, suddenly it seemed, stadiums were being lit up with enough energy to power a medium sized city. So bright that spots of light must have been visible from Mars. So bright in fact that it was possible to play sport at night in exactly the same way you would play in the day.
Desirable? I don't know, watching sport on a lazy Saturday afternoon seemed more natural. Was, indeed, more natural. Sport at night? Suited big business and big media interests - who would have thought. No room for this nonsense in future, can't afford energy use that is destroying your planet, just to make advertisers rich, can we?
So I think we will be back to local teams playing during the day, on the weekends (and on real grass, making artificial turf chews up a lot of fossil fuel). Just like it used to be. Not a bad play, I think.
What do you think, sports fans?
