Jeremiah's School of Levitation

Here's some world-warming facts for you:

• According to NASA, 2005 had the highest annual average surface temperature worldwide since instrument recordings began in the late 1800s. Holy Shit! (The italics are mine, but, hell, it'd been hella funny, and appropriate, if NASA had said that too.)
  

• "Global observations coordinated by WMO [World Meteorological Organization] show that levels of carbon dioxide, the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, continue to increase steadily and show no signs of leveling off," said Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the U.N. climate and weather agency.

• "If we stop [adding] CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, it would take 50 to 100 years before [we start] to see approaches to preindustrial levels."

• "Globally averaged concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide in the planet's atmosphere reached their highest ever recorded levels in 2004," WMO said.

Oooh! Let's take a long drive to the beach and watch the air curdle! Or, let's just take a freaking long drive!

I don't know if what Bob Marley said, which was "Ain't no use. No one can stop them now," is true or is a call to become more aware of what you personally are doing to contribute to this.

If you don't already regularly do this, take a bus today--wipe the damn seat down with a bleach rag if that's your trip with riding a bus. Ride a bike. Take a walk in those Adidas.

Do it for the kids in your house or in your neighborhood, if it's too hard to think about that big old scary globe out there. Because, see, global warming is already in your backyard.

Last night my very astute 9-year old son said, "Mom, did you know that global warming is happening because our cars give off too much exhaust? I want to invent something that will stop the exhaust going into the atmosphere. Can we talk about it?" We spent the next 20 minutes brainstorming whether an Ionic Breeze could be adapted to fit a muffler, how you have to sort of reverse-engineer a big problem like that, how much it would cost, what you'd do with exhaust if you could trap it, etc. My son wants to be an inventor now.

Maybe. Just maybe. Our generation won't find the answer. But our kids will.