Thinking globally, losing sleep locally

THERE was a full moon the other night, a glowing ball hanging like an illusion in a pristine sky, so perfect and so beautiful it made you want to just stand and stare, as you would at a Van Gogh painting or sunset over the Aegean.

It was on my mind as I settled into bed in heat so oppressive that it kept me thrashing about in a semi-sleep for the next six or seven hours, unable to get comfortable. I kept thinking about the song from the musical “Kiss Me, Kate,” “It’s too darn hot....”

The air conditioning that cools the upstairs portion of our house had gone kaput, and a fan just didn’t do the job. But then, as I lay dying of the heat, I said to myself that air conditioning is probably contributing to global warming anyhow, so maybe it was God’s will that it broke down.

This led me by way of a kind of a somnambulant connection to the full moon and to wondering if the greenhouse effect really is the first step toward a depopulated world, the history of humanity erased by our inability to accept a little discomfort, with a full moon shining down on an empty planet.

I dragged myself out of bed still wondering, began researching the subject and here we are, another whining liberal throwing baby kisses to the environment, another worshipper of a sundown deity.

True, I am a whining liberal, more or less, but even if I weren’t I would have to say that I’ve reached the conclusion that we’re probably doomed. It could be worse, I guess; we could be trapped through eternity in our current situation, killing and torturing in the name of a god who may be about to give up on the whole human race anyhow.

In my sleepless torpor, I began visualizing a world under assault by super hurricanes, rising seas, droughts, thunderous rain, advancing deserts, crushing heat, mammoth floods and raging fires while I perched like a fiddler on the roof watching little babies and innocent mothers cry their way into darkness.

An element of my doomsday scenario was a series of conversations I had with locals while traveling in Alaska, where they talked in worried tones about their disappearing glaciers, now just white streaks on dark mountains, rising temperatures, more rain, more lightning and more forest fires.

It was probably close to 90 degrees in Anchorage on the July day we were there. During a visit 25 years ago last July the temperature was in the 40s. Is all of this a part of an Earth cycle or the beginning of the end? Two weeks ago we were in a small Alaskan town called Beaver Creek, choking on the smoke of a brush fire in the distance. There were more of them lately, a local bus driver said, caused by a combination of rising temperatures and more frequent lightning strikes. “We’re in trouble,” he said.

The debate rages on, but not to a guy like Al Gore, who’s been warning us of global warming for a decade and now looks out at us from the big screen in his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” intelligent and convincing, shaking his finger like a worried father, foreseeing vast dangers for the children of the future.

He and others tell us that unless we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70%, global warming could turn our radiant blue Earth into a dark and uninhabitable rock, flying silently through space. The clock is ticking.

We emit these gases, according to researchers, whenever we use electricity and whenever we drive, fly, heat or cool our homes and offices, not to mention whenever we manufacture just about anything, as our factories pump out hydrocarbons 24 hours a day. This has begun to worry most of the world, although Americans have a tough time believing we’re in real trouble. If global warming isn’t going to intrude on the upcoming NFL season, what’s the big deal?

True, there are bills in Congress dealing in small, pathetic ways with various issues of global warming, but I wouldn’t count on Congress to save the world. And, true, our governor has made a deal with Britain’s Tony Blair to address climate changes and new fuel technologies, but The Arnold is up for reelection this year, and politicians will sell their babies to remain in power.

Altruism during an election year is about as genuine as an assassin’s kiss.

I think it’s up to both us liberal whiners and staunch, tough, feet-on-the-ground conservatives to march together in a kind of ad hoc alliance to start saving the Earth for future generations of whining libs and iron-tough right-wingers. I’m going to do what I can by buying a hybrid car and adding another fan to cool our bedroom. Someone’s got to be around to look up at the wondrous glory of a full moon on a warm summer night, even if it does mean a little less sleep.

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Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be reached at al.martinez@latimes.com.