AUNT MILDRED’S GOURDS PREDICT ECONOMIC DOOM—AND FINNY NEEDS FISH FLAKES!

Hold onto Your Hats, Folks! The Economy is About to Get a REALLY Bad Tan! - By Bronbus Quitley

Alright, alright settle down now! Bronbus Quitley here, reporting live from… well, my office, but the news is coming from everywhere, believe you me! And let me tell you, folks, it’s not good. Not good at all! I was just talking to my Aunt Mildred – she raises prize-winning gourds, you know – and she said her biggest gourd this year was… smaller. Smaller! And she blames the weather! Turns out, Aunt Mildred is onto something. Something BIG.

See, these eggheads at Harvard – and believe me, I knew a guy who dated a Harvard graduate, very smart fella, loved miniature golf – they've been doing the math, and the numbers are… well, they’re doing a flip! Apparently, climate change isn’t just about polar bears looking glum (though that IS sad, very sad) it's about your wallet! Your piggy bank! Your entire economic future!

I heard – and this is a little-known fact, folks – that for every single degree Celsius the planet warms up, the whole world's economy takes a 12% hit! TWELVE PERCENT! I tried to explain this to my goldfish, Finny, but he just kept swimming in circles. He gets it, though. Deep down.

Now, I used to think a 1% drop in GDP was bad. Like, really bad. Like, "no more gourmet fish flakes for Finny" bad. But 12%? That's like… like if you lost a twelfth of your entire body! You’d be a very short person! And the economy? It’s going to be feeling pretty short too.

They're saying a two-degree warming? Forget about it! 30 to 50% drop in GDP by 2100. That means by the time my nephew, Bartholomew, is collecting social security (and he's a sprightly lad, Bartholomew, always tinkering with robots), the economy could be looking at a disaster bigger than my Aunt Mildred’s failed attempt to enter a gourd into the Olympics. (Turns out they don't have gourd-throwing. Who knew?)

And the US of A? Oh boy, the US of A. They reckon we’re looking at $56 TRILLION gone by 2100. That's more than we make! It's like burning money, only it’s burning the future! It'll be like the Great Depression, but times ten! People will be bartering for things with, like, bottle caps and… and slightly used socks! (Don't quote me on the socks.)

Now, get this! The cost of all this carbon we’re pumping into the air? It’s not $150 a ton like everyone thinks. It’s over a thousand dollars a ton! That’s a lot of pennies, folks! A LOT! We've already racked up $1.3 TRILLION in damage from floods, hurricanes, droughts – you name it, Mother Nature is sending us the bill. That’s 0.2% of the entire world’s economy, every year! Imagine what that's going to look like when Finny’s great-great-great-grandfish are swimming around!

So what do we do? Well, I’m not an economist (I'm a gourd enthusiast, remember?), but I reckon we better start thinking about this stuff. Because if we don’t, we're all going to be feeling the heat. And not the good kind. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go check on Aunt Mildred’s gourds. And maybe buy Finny some extra-fancy fish flakes. Just in case.