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THE MODERATE ENVIRONMENTALIST
George Stump

I guess bein' a moderate environmentalist kinda comes with the territory when you own a timber company. I know it does in my case. I pride myself on being a moderate clearcutter. And I work moderately hard to ensure that my lobbyin' concern, Slash, Burn, Cash and Carry, keeps the environment moderate.

Bein' a timber man, I understand that trees are a resource. They're like people: they're there to be cut down. The environment is a wonderful place, and you've got to go out there and get all the wonderful things it has to offer, in order to give your grandchildren the opportunity to pay for it.

Lotsa folks are talkin' now about alternative energies. But what are they alternatives to? Are they saying they want people to get out of their cars? This is an interesting thought. I got out of my car once. Of course, bein' a moderate, I left the motor runnin. And the air conditioning. But now you hear people talkin' about runnin cars on alcohol fuel, and that's plain wrong. Alcohol's for people, not for cars. The car should not drink and drive. You should have a designated drinker, and it should not be the car.

Then they talk about solar power. Well, any power's fine, long as it's mine. And right now there's three of our utility companies building the largest solar entrapment unit in the world, out there in the Mojave Desert, in order to provide that energy to those less fortunate, who cannot afford their own sun. But in the solar era, you must solarize prudently. You should never look directly at the sun, and you must never directly entrap the sun's rays. You should always filter those rays through a corporation.

People complain a lot about wholesale destruction of the environment. Well, I can get it for you retail, if you insist , but why are people complainin' about the new national energy policy? There's nothin to complain about, when you think about it! And as for toxic waste, as the Vice President has said, "Waste is a terrible thing to mind."

But the ozone, now there's a real problem that we must all work on. You must take responsibility for your personal ozone space. Every night I go out on my patio and use my ozone patch kit. It comes in its own spray can. Call me a do-gooder, but I do. We all gotta pull together.

Global warming, you see, is not caused by people. It's caused by cows. Cow flatulence, you see, which contains methane. Now don't get me wrong, I got nothin' against the vegetarians, although I don't eat 'em myself of course. I like k.d. lang. I got nothin against the vegetarian lesbian cowgirl singers - I s'pose they call themselves cow-women singers now - I don't care. As long as they don't ty to move in next door and marry my daughter! But this lesbian vegetarian thing is goin' too far. If we get rid of the cows, what will we use to warm the planet? I admit that cows are eatin up all them greenhouse grasses, and that's a problem. But I think President Bush explained it pretty good to all them bitty nations.