No Fiction Stranger Than the World in Which We Live

Reductio ad absurdum is a logical argument that highlights the logically bizarre (“absurd”) outcome of an opponent’s argument.

Recently, I thought I’d chosen the most absurd examples to make some editorial points. As it turns out, I was reminded instead that there may be no fiction stranger than the world in which we live.

A couple of weeks ago, for example, I suggested in this space that the current weak-kneed dismay about CO 2 emission s wil l certainl y lead to a dog carbon tax, because, after all, Fido pumps out CO 2 prett y much 24/7.

Absurd, right?

Not so fast. Two days after that column appeared, a book was published in New Zealand that claimed to demonstrate, among other things, that the carbon pawprint of an average sized family dog is greater than that of an SUV.

The two authors, who hold day jobs as—wait for it—university professors, said they looked at the food requirements for family pets and the land needed to grow that food. “If you have a German shepherd,” they said, “or similar-sized dog, for example, its impact every year is exactly the same as driving a large car around.” Leaving no stone unturned, the learned authors also measured the climate impact of a cat, a hamster, and a goldfish—the equivalent, respectively, of a Volkswagen Golf, 2 plasma TVs, and 2 cellphones.

The book’s marketing team obviously paid attention in their journalism classes, and leaned heavily on the authors’ conclusion for the inspired title. As any newspaper editor would probably tell you, Dog Bites Man is a good story title, Man Bites Dog is better, but Man Eats Dog is best.

Yes, as the book’s title absurdly suggests, if we are to save the planet, it is indeed Time to Eat the Dog.

Further evidence of my ignorance of the current standard of the absurd also came to my attention recently. Several months ago I pointed out in a column—derisively—the vicissitudes of climate scientists, who don’t seem to be able to decide if temperatures are rising or falling.

I noted in that column that Newsweek magazine ran a feature story in 1975 about the impending ice age that would soon be upon us. Among possible solutions proposed back then was a massive coating of soot on the North Pole. The soot would absorb the sun’s heat and melt the ice cap, and thus possibly head off, for example, the takeover of Albany by polar bears—which, just to be clear, I’m not at all opposed to.

In response to that column a sharp-eyed reader sent me an August 2009 National Geographic article, which suggested that a good way to mitigate global warming would be to create a cosmic “shade” for the earth.

This would be done by exploding a device high above the earth that would spread tiny reflective particles, such as sulfate, into outer space. (Sulfate is the stuff used to make Epsom salts and plaster.) The article even helpfully offered some neat ideas for getting the job done: “Planes, balloons, battleship guns pointed upward—there is no shortage of possible delivery vehicles.”

And so the hilarious soot-covered North Pole of 1975, envisioned as a way to prevent a new ice age, is replaced in our enlightened day by shooting Epsom salts into outer space to prevent the fiery doomsday of global warming.

So what’s an editorial writer to do? When serious people recommend that we eat the family pet or create extraterrestrial sunshades as ways to prevent global warming, I’m almost afraid to offer an absurdum to make an editorial point.

Frankly, I’m not sure my imagination is that good.