Our resident science guy rolls the dice with the fate of us all
If it’s not painfully clear yet, climate change is going to end our civilization and kill us all. All that’s really left is for BuzzFeed to make a quiz so we can all find out how we’ll die.
Since this is print, we can’t really do that, so let’s do the next best thing…get yourself three six-sided dice and roll them to see exactly how climate change will kill you!
3—Good News! The governments of the world get it together and ban fossil fuels by 2025! Climate change recovery is still an issue for decades to come, but our civilization survives. Yay!
4—Alien Invasion! The world unites to save humanity from an external threat, and, using captured alien technology, devises a “scrubber” that efficiently removes the excess CO2 from the atmosphere. Another bit of alien tech provides clean, limitless power and removes the need for fossil fuels.
(Roll another die. On a 1 or 2, the invaders are “sexy” aliens and we “Captain Kirk” our way to victory. A 3 or 4 means the aliens can be killed by subjecting them to Alex Jones videos. A 5 or 6 means that they invaded because they also destroyed their home planet’s biosphere, and have no concept of irony.)
5—Rapture/Apocalypse! Roll another die. On a 1 to 3, your favorite deity comes back and fixes everything. On a 4 or 5, Cthulhu wakes up and really fixes everything. On a 6, Trump unzips his body suit to reveal that he’s been Andy Kaufman all along. “I might have gone too far this time,” he says, just before he tries to enact sweeping reforms to address the problem. Mitch McConnell blocks them.
6—Rolling Coal! Those guys are just rude. You choke to death at a stop light.
7—You forgot to vaccinate and die of a preventable disease! Not technically climate change, but it’s about the same level of stupidity, so, I’m including it. You die with people laughing at you.
8—Refugee Crisis! Failed crops and food scarcity drive you and your family to seek opportunity in another country. They find out you are American and turn you away. You die wandering in the wilderness, looking for a Publix.
9—Rock Slide! Excessive rains loosen the soil in the surrounding mountains and, while driving to a camp site one day, you and your family are crushed beneath tons of rocks…and a Subway.
10—Forest Fire! Long droughts lead to extra-flammable forests. And you never learned how to put out a camp fire properly, did you?
11—Flooding! Remember those 500- and 1,000-year floods? Well, they’re coming every five or ten years now. After a while, you get so used to them that you forget yourself and try to drive across a flooded street. You hear laughter, and then drown.
12—Tornado! Look out! There are Confederate monuments in that twister! You are crushed.
13—Disease transmitted by mosquitoes or other critters that are now able to reproduce year round. Roll another die. On a 1 to 3, it’s Lyme disease from a tick. A 4 or 5 is West Nile from a mosquito. A 6 is rabies from that adorable raccoon your daughter just had to bring home from the camping trip where you narrowly avoided being killed by that forest fire you started.
14—Death by lightning during a Christmas ThunderSnow storm! No, wait. It’s a Halloween ThunderSnow storm. It only seems like Christmas because all the stores already have their *&#% Christmas decorations out!
15—Asteroid strike! Ha! Stupid humans! You should also be investing in finding and deflecting Earth-crossing asteroids. You are burned, crushed, and vaporized.
16—It’s Da Bomb! “Da Bomb Cyclone” that is! In April? Who knows? This stuff is happening year-round now, and Oh. My. God. The Christmas decorations are already up at the mall!!
17—Your grandkids decide that if you don’t care about them, then they shouldn’t care about you. The under 30s rise up, kill us all and use our bones to rebuild the coral reefs. But first, they convert your prized Corvette into an electric vehicle and run you over with it.
18—You have a heart attack from your anger at this column. Unfortunately, all the first responders are dealing with disasters brought about by climate change. They arrive too late.
19—You have died of dysentery. This is the best you can hope for, as your inability to do basic math doesn’t give you much of a chance of survival anyway.
Merry Christmas, Corpses!
Steven W. Disbrow is the proprietor of “Improv Chattanooga” on the South Side of town. He also creates e-commerce systems and reads comic books when he’s not on stage acting like a fool.