In the journal Science biologists predict that in seventy years, in 2080, some forty percent of lizard populations will have died and twenty percent of lizard species will have gone extinct.
In Mexico, some ten percent of places where lizards flourished in 1975 no longer have any lizards.
Global warming, the scientists say, interferes with the lizards’ ability to breed, thus killing them off. Now. Today. Not in seventy years.
Oh, well. Hardly a concern of us dominant humans. After all, we run the planet. We’re the boss, the top dog, the alpha male, the king of the mountain. What’s a few lizards matter, eh?
Fewer lizards, more bugs.
More bugs, fewer crops.
More bugs, more disease.
More bugs, fewer humans.
Fewer lizards, fewer humans.
But really, it won’t matter much. After all, we’re in the process of killing everything else that makes life possible on the planet, including human life.
So screw the lizards. They’re only good for making handbags and shoes anyway.
Right?
Just for the record, The Lion notes that the new platform document of the Maine Republican Party, a document created by Tea Partiers, contains the following policy statement:
Defeat Cap and Trade, investigate collusion between government and industry in the global warming myth, and prosecute any illegal collusion.
Apparently there are no lizards in Maine, other than the reptiles in charge of the Republican Party.
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Grumpy Lion 
Well, fuck. I was just making small talk with the Hindu man at the convenience store. He was explaining to me the 4 eras of Life on Earth. He tells me we’re in the “everything is shit” phase. (My paraphrasing.) He and other Hindus are waiting for the 10th incarnation of Vishnu (the nurturing God) to come back and help clean up the joint. Buddha was the 9th incarnation; so, we’re overdue for a visit.
Between the Lion’s story and Andy’s story, the answer right now seems to be to inspire each person in the world to be a Vishnu. Can we get on that?
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Me, I’m waiting for the Lizard God to return.
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Ah! The Maori God Whiro’s right hand man. Whiro represented all that is shitty on earth. He hefted misery on tribes. If the gods were angry and wished to kill a man, they would invoke the lizard to enter into a man’s body, in order to eat away his life giving organs.
What’s he gonna do without Lizards?
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Incidentally, invoking lizards to enter the bodies of CEOs for say Goldman-Sachs and BP et al. and having said lizards eat their organs is a poetic thought…by Dante standards anyway.
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Poetic irony, considering all the shittiness those people have unleashed on the rest of the world.
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Too true.
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Is there any chance fewer lizards will mean more bees? The way it stands now, if fewer bees seems to mean less food, and fewer lizards means more bugs, then humans will have less food and more diseases. We’re fucked.
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Lizards aren’t doing the bees. We’re doing the bees.
On the other hand, less food might mean healthier people and somewhat less disease of certain sorts. And of course fewer humans means less disease through less contagion at least.
See? Uninformed logic conquers all problems, large and small.
Regarding your last sentence: Absolutely!
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