Jokes

"I support global warming," he says, smiling, chuckling to himself, apropos the general positive reaction in such a statement from the table, people tired of snow, of cold, of endless gray. But knowing - knowing indeed, the results of the joke - of catastrophic global warming, of droughts, and storms, and fires, and blizzards, and lost lives and lost money, the joke loses its appeal, a light-hearted reference that underlies the relative disconnect between public knowledge and scientific knowledge, the relative public illiteracy on the greatest challenge facing human kind. Nobody would laugh at a bumper sticker that read "I Support Superstorm Sandy" or "I Support California Droughts," but the information imparted is the same, and feigning ignorance is not a feign worth indulging when much of the public will plead it.