Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report on the global knowledge of the climate crisis. The exhaustive document, representing the work of hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists, paints a dire picture of the future. Summers will be hotter, winters colder, and once-in-a-century storms will occur more like once every few months. And all this may be just the tip of the melting iceberg. Buried in the back of the 3,675-page report were 10 predictions about the effects of global warming that should send a chill up the spine of every man, woman, and child on the planet.
1) In a cruel case of irony, the complete deforestation of the Amazon will occur by 2035 as demand for wood for coffins to bury victims of climate change skyrockets.
2) Elon Musk will sell his beachfront home, citing the high cost of flood insurance.
3) With record heat gripping much of the country, “chafing” will edge out “long waits at doctors’ offices” and “hip-replacement surgery” as the No. 1 complaint among old people.
In a cruel case of irony, the complete deforestation of the Amazon will occur by 2035 as demand for wood for coffins to bury victims of climate change skyrockets.
4) As oceans continue to rise, deep-sea fishermen will become known as “really-really-really-deep-sea fishermen.”
5) Because of dangerous ultraviolet rays streaming through the hole in the ozone layer, Massachusetts will become the first state in the nation to issue a parasol mandate.
6) High winds, tornados, and hurricanes will sweep across much of the U.S., causing the nation’s last remaining kite manufacturers to go out of business.
7) The ubiquitous red-state/blue-state map will be supplanted by a brown-state/blue-state map: brown for the states uninhabitable because of severe drought, blue for the states permanently underwater due to torrential rains and flooding.
8) As average daily temperatures soar, food writer Alison Roman will publish a cookbook consisting entirely of delicious stir-fry recipes you can whip up on the hood of your car.
9) The U.S. Postal Service’s motto, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” will be amended to contain the footnote “Eh, maybe not.”
10) With one-third of its Gulf Coast underwater, and record heat crippling the state’s power grid, the Texas legislature will pass an emergency law allowing Texans to sue anyone who utters the word “abortion.”
John Ficarra, former editor of Mad magazine, recently tested positive for immaturity
