Written by John Glassco   

Pessimists among us are agonizing over the implications of how humans might suffer while trying to survive the pending disasters associated with a relentlessly warming planet.

There is little evidence that the political and industrial machinery we have in place, is equipped to cope with even the possibility of the elephant in the room. This is while even young children get that we are headed for a no holds barred cage match with Mother Nature.

It is more, and more likely, that those of middle age and younger will probably have to cope with rising sea levels, scorching summers, crop failures & famines, plus ousted hoards seeking asylum. The future almost certainly holds a thousand unexpected and grisly catastrophes for humans up ahead.

I want here to offer an alternative optimistic vision for the future of our species. I have faith in the Gaia hypothesis, a possible way out for us to avoid a showdown with Mother Nature. The theory holds that the Earth itself is a self-regulating system, and will eventually correct any environmental imbalance.

According to Wikipedia, "the Gaia Hypothesis was put forward by James Lovelock, that living matter on the earth collectively defines and regulates the material conditions necessary for the continuance of life. The planet, or rather the biosphere, is thus likened to a vast self-regulating organism." A simple example is that the prehistoric animal life produced all of the oxygen in our atmosphere, the singular most important gas to us humans in the air we breathe.

Lovelock never believed in saving the planet. He suggested instead that we just batten down inside our cities and prepare to ride-out the impending chaos. Since Lovelock's idea was hatched in the crazy 1970's there have been a few dissenters.

The Medea hypothesis for instance claims with some proof, that we may live only a few steps away from another total disaster. Peter Wards theory dismisses Gaia with some backing facts, that Earth has survived at least three periods of snowball-earth. The last total freeze is known as the Marinoan Epoch which lasted 15 million years and ended over 700 million years ago. This experience put perma-frost and glacial till distributed at the equator. It is hard to imagine even well equipped humans living through that.

However, I favor Lovelock's optimistic view of things. In pondering our current insolvent riddle, I have come up with an optimistic scenario that may just bring our climate back into balance. Everyone across the nation likes a quick fix.

So here it is: Lets say we get Trump as President. Now the likelihood of us getting into a nuclear war, triggered by President Trump during one of his juvenile tantrums, and probably to be named after him for evermore, skyrockets.

Imagine if the resulting nuclear winter from the dust cloud kicked up by the war exactly balances the gloomy predicted global warming. It would probably be safe to go outside again after less than 50 years or so - with respirators of course - to look around.

Just throwin' this out there - tryin' to make some lemonade here folks - everything isn't so bad. Besides, Republicans need something about Trump to cheer them up, seeing as they spawned him. You know Bernie and Hillary with their spat are miles away from having a clash like the one brewing for the Republicans at their predictably uber-ugly convention. We have to get this idea to Trump somehow, and fast.