The Age of Stupid has arrived

THANKS for all the mail and ideas about pointless world records. I was definitely wrong about bra-related world records.

This is clearly a good choice of subject for generating interest and not pointless at all. Definitely worth a follow-up.

Well, you live and learn, That’s the life of reporters, I guess: we are always delivering information to an audience which actually is smarter and more knowledgeable than the journalists ourselves.

Actually, this became particularly clear to me with a recent assignment.

“Write a piece about the disaster in Australia,” a magazine editor says to me.

“No worries, mate,” I reply.

So I look up a news website to find material to do what journalists call "in-depth background research" (or, "cut and paste").

I find two headlines:

"Drought triggers inferno in Australia" and

"Deluge triggers floods in Australia".

I phone a friend in Sydney. "I understand that you guys are on fire and drowning at the same time," I say.

"Yeah," she replies. "That's normal round here."

"I don't want to sound like an insensitive idiot, but can't you just use the extra water to put out the fire?" I asked.

"You insensitive idiot," she replied. "Australia is big. It has the same surface area as the planet Jupiter, or Rupert Murdoch's wallet, whichever is larger. The flood is precisely one quintillion kilometers away from the fire."

I asked her what caused the fire. She replied: "Global warming."And the flood? "Global warming."

*
I have been making a list of things for which global warming has been blamed. It now includes fires, floods, droughts, freezes, thaws, heat waves, cold spells, kidney stones, stock market crashes, male pattern baldness, American Idol, obesity, and the flopping of a soufflé made by a friend of mine last Sunday.

Could all these things really be the fault of global warming? Apparently, Yes. It is an extremely complex effect which touches literally everything.

The truth of this is shown in a brilliant new movie called "The Age of Stupid" (a label for the current era, as seen from the year 2055). The filmmaker decided that she was so fed up of people being confused about global warming that she would explain everything so simply even journalists could understand it.

The movie isn't launched until next month, but critics are already raving about it. "Fabulously funny, heart-wrenching and bizarre", said one. But this is the really amazing thing: the director is my niece Franny, who I still think of as a tiny, freckled brat, but who I suppose must be out of diapers now.

I decided to email Franny to congratulate her. But she was busy wrestling with the movie ratings agencies over the trailer. The problem is that a person on screen, realizing that the end of the world is nigh, makes a colorful exclamation. This made the movie rating agencies nervous as to whether it was okay for children to see. "The complete annihilation of the human race is fine for under-15s, but a bad word or two is just not on," Franny explained.
*
So how does global warming cause heat waves and cold spells, bad hair days and soufflé flops? It's simple. Global warming should actually be called climate change, because individuals (and soufflés) are designed for one climate, but have to adapt abruptly to different ones which will become increasingly extreme.

Like most genius-level ideas, the film's premise is simple. It shows the world in 2055: there's no snow on the Alps, London is flooded, and Australia is burning. Just as she was putting the finishing touches to the movie, Australia caught fire in real life.

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At this point, the magazine editor mentioned at the beginning called to tell me that he had no interest in climate change and was going to fill the space with a feature on designer handbags instead.

Yes, The Age of Stupid is proceeding as expected.