A World Of Trouble

Global warming. That's something I worry about. Drought in the west. Tornadoes in the middle. Every kind of furious weather in the east. When I am not consumed by fear of climate change and the greenhouse gasses that will  most certainly our collective undoing, I fret about the coming storms of civil unrest. Baltimore and Ferguson are part of a list that seems to grow daily. For every victory one side gets from the Supreme Court seems to drive the divide still deeper between the left and the right. Blue and Red. Liberal and Conservative. American and National League. There are so many ways to exacerbate us versus them. Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a spot where we could put our flags and banners aside long enough to agree to disagree.
I have, in the past, suggested that what we really need as Americans is a good old-fashioned zombie apocalypse. Maybe not just America either. Get all those Islamic State yahoos to band together to make a jihad against the walking dead. That would be a treat. Use all those guns to start killing the real enemy: people who are already dead. Wouldn't that be nice? Or an invasion from outer space, with its attendant green men and death rays. Humankind could band together to make their stand, even if their ax handles and pitchforks seem no match for the futuristic weaponry of this advanced race. At first. And then the tide would turn. Eventually we would rise up and destroy our robotic overlords, taking back the planet that was once ours. We could rebuild. United once again.
It makes a nice story, doesn't it? Well, I have news for you: Nature may still give us this chance. A grizzly bear in Minnesota smashed the glass in the zoo there. With a basketball sized rock. The bear threw this boulder at the glass barrier that stood between it and the viewing public. There was no attack beyond that, but if bears are starting to use tools, we could all be in trouble.
A world of trouble.
And wouldn't that be an awesome thing?