When Even the Beaches Are Too Hot, Is Doomsday Near?

In the last couple of weeks, the local conversation has turned from idle musing to a contemplation of the end game. What happens, exactly, when it’s so hot in Southern California that you simply can’t go on? When not even a trip to the beach cools you off, nor a moonlit drive on Pacific Coast Highway with the top down?

It’s a scenario too painful to contemplate.

Do we make a final mad dash to Fashion Island and binge? A pilgrimage to Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church? Or just lie in our beds, on our backs like tanned water beetles, and count it down?

Have you sensed the Doomsday feeling in the air, as even seaside temperatures crept toward, gasp, 90 degrees? What’s the point of sunscreen if we’re all going to perish in apocalyptic heat?

Few things connect people in SoCal, but complaining about anything short of ideal weather certainly is one of them. Oddly enough, I found myself complaining just the other day -- it was just too darn hot to walk down to the junior Olympic-size pool in my apartment complex. I was forced to remain on the sofa and watch a ballgame on TV.

I thought about all those years ago, growing up in the Midwest, where the weather mantra was “You don’t like the weather? Wait 10 minutes.” But now in Orange County -- where I used to tell people, “You don’t like the weather? Wait nine months” -- the sense of dread deepens daily.

And, drat the luck, just as my niece and her family are coming from St. Louis for a visit.

To confirm that the end is near, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse appeared on a talk show last week. He was introduced as Al Gore, former vice president. He talked about global warming and wore an expansive dark suit. He seemed a disturbing combination of menace and mirth, just the way you’d expect someone to act who knows it’s about over.

I couldn’t follow his stuff on global warming, so I headed to the Internet where, luckily, the government has produced a “Kids Site” to explain it. The site apparently is for children and adults who, like me, got Cs in science.

You’d never know we’re doomed from reading the site. Things are explained in a casual way, with only a hint of ominousness: “Sometimes little things can turn into big things.”

For instance, the site says, if you don’t brush your teeth for a day, you’re probably going to be OK. But if you don’t brush for a month, you may develop a cavity.

“It’s the same with global temperatures. If temperatures rise above normal levels for a few days, it’s no big deal -- the Earth will stay more or less the same. But if temperatures continue to rise over a longer period of time, then the Earth may experience some problems.”

Uh-huh. Worldwide tooth decay.

To a kid, a “longer period of time” is three weeks, so I’m guessing most of them are shrieking with fear these days, wondering how much longer they have before this heat does them in.

The site explains the Greenhouse Effect, which probably sent another shudder through our young people. The site says we all -- including you, kids! -- send greenhouse gases into the air when doing things like watching TV, using air conditioning, riding in cars, turning on lights, playing video games, listening to stereos or microwaving food.

Other than that, kids, rock on.

Assuming all kids hadn’t fainted dead away by that point, the site tells them they can make a difference. “Driving a car is not wrong,” the government says. “We just have to be smart about it.”

I’m not sure why that message is going to kids and not their dopey, gas-guzzling parents, but so be it.

Anyway, the kids are told that if they recycle and save electricity and ride their bikes and plant trees and use solar energy, they can help make a difference.

Terrific advice, no doubt about it.

I’m sure kids would love to help save the planet and thwart global warming.

But with the weather being what it is these days around here, you can’t help but think their response is likely to be “Sorry, it’s too late.”

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.