Exclusive: Plants and animals join forces with climate change deniers

April 24, 2011

A recent investigation reveals that the world’s plants and animals have adopted a bold but risky strategy to save themselves from the ravages of global climate change. They have joined forces with the world’s climate change deniers.

This reversal has curious origins and follows decades of diplomatic signals from the plant and animal kingdoms to the world’s scientific community that climate change must be halted or there will be “serious consequences.” The reversal of strategy began when domestic cats and dogs watched the Life After People series on The History Channel along with their putative owners. The cats and dogs then described scenes from the show to their wild counterparts. From there word swept through the animal kingdom and was overheard by many plants as well.

Life After People seemed like a utopian fantasy until some enterprising house plants realized that they might be able to set in motion events which would end the dangers that humans pose. The plants would make humans unwitting accomplices in their own extinction. It was a dangerous plan and one that would require considerable sacrifice among those in both the plant and animal kingdoms. When word of the plan spread far and wide, both kingdoms embraced it as the only path to survival for at least some species. Many realized they were doomed already; but if they could halt or even just reduce the extent of the Sixth Great Extinction, their actions would not be in vain.

Plants in elite greenhouses were recruited by dogs brought there by their putative owners. These greenhouses are ones that serve corporate clients in major cities, but especially the coal, oil, and natural gas industries. Once these plants arrived at various corporate headquarters, they began to send messages to the corporate executives using frequencies barely inside the audible range and at such a low volume as to be subliminal. The messages were broad-ranging and included the following:

  1. We plants love carbon dioxide.
  2. Warmer weather is fun. (This was used primarily on those in colder climates.)
  3. Climate change is natural.
  4. People will adapt.

Perhaps the most pernicious (and therefore effective) message on the list above was the last. But, representatives of the plant and animal kingdoms were at loggerheads over it for days as they deliberated in the coordinating council which eventually approved the plan. The animals argued that there should be no message concerning adaptation since bringing up this issue would only worry humans. The plants argued that most humans were stupid enough to believe they could overcome anything through their technology. Using the adaptation message would encourage humans to ignore even the most alarming evidence of climate change. The plants carried the day when they proposed to the animals that the plan focus on fossil fuel executives, thought to be the most gullible humans on Earth and some of the most powerful. The plants argued that these executives would hire many people to propagate the messages across the globe to other humans.

And, so like suicide bombers, knowing that many would be sacrificed in the mission to eliminate humans from the globe, the plants gradually populated major office buildings owned by the fossil fuel companies. They transmitted their messages from starting time in the morning until late at night to executives working long hours in their offices.

To the surprise and delight of both the plant and animal kingdoms, the plan worked exceedingly well. They began to see their messages in various forms everywhere in human society. The humans were so ingenious that they had disguised and enhanced the basic messages in ways not even conceived of by either the plants or the animals. The consensus that up to that point had been building to halt climate change–a consensus due in large part to the information both kingdoms had previously sent to scientists–was now being destroyed.

There was jubilation in the encampment of the coordinating council (though the sacrifices ahead tempered their celebration somewhat). Both kingdoms felt they had already accomplished their objective: the eventual extinction of human beings. The two kingdoms had demonstrated self-sacrifice and cooperation in ways that they were sure humans would never be capable of. They believed that humanity’s fate was sealed.

But, will the discovery of and reporting on this diabolical plan now endanger its success? I asked a leading plant who wished not to be identified because he feared for his own safety. “Your reporting won’t matter,” he said. “All the climate change deniers we’ve been able to recruit in human society will drown out your story. And, they will, of course, argue that the whole report is nonsense because first of all, plants can’t talk, and second of all, the plants told them that plants love carbon dioxide.”

“But won’t such statements seem a bit contradictory?” I inquired.

The plant just shook his flowering top. “You don’t even understand human nature as well as we plants do.”

Kurt Cobb is the author of the peak-oil-themed thriller, Prelude, and a columnist for the Paris-based science news site Scitizen. His work has also been featured on Energy Bulletin, The Oil Drum, 321energy, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique, EV World, and many other sites. He maintains a blog called Resource Insights.

Kurt Cobb

Kurt Cobb is a freelance writer and communications consultant who writes frequently about energy and environment. His work has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Common Dreams, Le Monde Diplomatique, Oilprice.com, OilVoice, TalkMarkets, Investing.com, Business Insider and many other places. He is the author of an oil-themed novel entitled Prelude and has a widely followed blog called Resource Insights. He is currently a fellow of the Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions.

Tags: Industry, Media & Communications