[diemos]

Once upon a time there was a bacteria that discovered the trick to photosynthesis. Armed with this amazing source of energy his descendants prospered and conquered the earth.

Then a scientist noticed that photosynthesis was removing the carbon dioxide from the air that was keeping the earth warm and it was releasing a toxic, corrosive gas called oxygen that was inimical to anaerobic life.

He convened the first conference on bacteriogenic climate change to warn his fellow scientists and the people that if photosynthesis continued the earth would eventually freeze over and everyone would die from their own waste products.

The people said, “God designed our atmosphere of carbon dioxide and methane to be perfect for us … and what God has created no bacteria can change. Besides, God’s going to come back soon and destroy the earth anyway long before that happens.” and they nodded sagely to each other congratulating themselves that they had seen though the scare mongering scientist’s attempt to gain more research grants and deprive them of the benefits of photosynthesis.

The scientists urged their governments to take this issue seriously and do something about it so the governments convened their own conference to decide what should be done. Everyone agreed that something should be done and that the solution was for someone ESLE to stop photosynthesizing so that they could go on doing it and reaping the benefits. So the governments solemnly signed and ratified an agreement that everyone would try to do less photosynthesis but the carbon dioxide get going down and the oxygen kept going up.

The youth realized that this was a problem whose consequences were going to fall on them. A young autistic bacteria went to address a gathering of her elders, “Don’t you understand that I’m just a child. I should be having a happy carefree childhood, lying in the sun photosynthesizing. Not have to come here and lecture you about how all your photosynthesizing is going to ruin my future.” And her elders nodded wisely at her blunt, plain-spoken truth and resolved to do something about it. Someday.

Then, at the 1,468,281,476 th conference on bacteriogenic climate change the keynote speaker stood shivering at the podium, solemnly gazing out at the empty auditorium and gasped out, “We … (wheeze) … really … (gasp) … need to … DO SOMETHING … (pant) … about all this oxygen.”

And died.

The end.

[jedrider]

Then what did Guy McHuronian say to the rest of the bacteria? In the end for us bacteria, too, all we have is love.

The bacteria is still around, though. We won't be.