Ten thousand Argentine tourists
took pictures and applauded as the country's largest glacier, Perito
Moreno, 20 miles long and 200 feet high, crashed
to Earth last month.
Although smaller than other recent glacier breakups and collapses like
the Ward
Ice Shelf in Northern Canada and the 1300 square mile Larsen Ice
Shelf in Antarctica, the collapse provides further evidence of the accelerating
effects of global warming.
News of the tremendous tourist
potential of such events hasn't been lost on
the commercial interests responsible for much of our planet's climate
change. ExxonMobil recently announced plans to offer Alaska cruises
on board oil tankers modeled on the Exxon Valdez. The tankers will
carry a full load of heavy crude, sail around the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge, and play 'chicken' among the ice floes. CEO Lee
Raymond
told reporters "Our passengers will be in for a thrilling ride. We all
know how our tanker pilots love to drink and party, and unlike the boring
spectacle last month when the ice floes narrowly missed that
Atlantic drilling rig, we guarantee
at least one catastrophic collision on each trip."
In a similar vein, Weyerhaeuser announced plans to erect huge bleachers
so that spectators can watch as the company wipes out
an entire old growth forest in one afternoon. CEO Steve Rogel said
"Viewers will be able to see a man-made disaster so
awesome they'll be able to show the devastated area to their
grandchildren, and we're going to top off the spectacle by laying off an entire community of loggers as
soon as the event is over."
Mel Gibson plans on filming both events and incorporating them into his
next religious slasher pic, Return
of the Christ. The film will include scenes with Jesus on a
cross made of Weyerhaeuser fibreboard, being tortured with chainsaws,
asking for a drink of water, but being given a glass of ExxonMobil
Brent Crude instead, as a Jewish abortion doctor laughs and says "It's
OK, Christ, it's unleaded."
Gibson insists a careful reading of the bible shows that these scenes
are a realistic portrayal of actual historical events.
Similar eco-spectaculars are planned by the Tennessee Valley Authority,
Dow Chemical, and Commonwealth Edison, but details cannot be released
until the Bush Administration finalizes its new regulations to prohibit
citizens from suing the companies for any wrongdoing.
Fox television is contemplating a series based on the events,
tentatively called When Earth Gives
Up: The World's Greatest Ecological Collapses. The first episode
would air right after the broadcast TV debut of the eco-flick The Core, in which a brave cadre of
engineers visits the centre of the Earth to fix its rotational spin.
Subsequent episodes would follow other eco-flicks, including Armageddon, starring Bruce Willis
as an oilman who saves Earth by blowing up an approaching asteroid with
a nuclear bomb. Fox also holds the rights to the newest eco-disaster
film, The Day
After Tomorrowabout the effects of abrupt climate change,
due in theatres May 28.
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