Ethnic Avenue – The Street That Crosses All the Others

If you’ve ever been to a convenience store in any major metropolitan area in America, you might already know that humanity is pretty much screwed. I’ll explain why.

Next month, the nations of the world are meeting in Copenhagen to discuss the ever-growing problem of global warming and CO2 emissions, and negotiate a “solution.” It’s a complicated thing, but the simplified version covers most of it. With the exception of a few dinosaurs-roamed-the-Earth-alongside-Jesus crazies, most everyone agrees the Earth is getting hotter—a problem for any living thing that doesn’t have gills. An overwhelming majority of the shit that’s caused (and continues to cause) the problem was put into the air by developed nations—especially the U.S. But now, it’s those same nations that are trying to talk everyone else into curbing emissions and restricting old, dirty technologies.

Standing in the way: billions of Chinese and Indian people.

The way China and India see it, the U.S. and Europe got to make all kinds of money polluting the Earth, and they want their piece of the action now that they’re up-and-coming themselves. Between the two countries, they have over a third of the world’s population, and all two-and-a-half billion people are lining up for their delicious slice of the pollution pie. The trick for the rest of the world is going to be to talk them down from that ledge. The prevailing guess is that negotiations are going to fail unless the current polluters come up with some serious compensation for the up-and-comers.

On their way to fill their baskets with cash.

Don’t get me wrong. Americans are greedy hogs that reinvented the meaning of living in excess. It’s the reason we’re the most obese, most indebted nation in the world. We invented things like food fights (not to be confused with fights over food), pie eating contests, and massive CEO salaries. But there’s nothing like ethnic greed. It’s not necessarily any worse, just different.

If you’ve ever crossed paths with: a no-substitution policy; a handwritten $10-minimum-to-use-your-credit-card sign; a guy that shovels food back out of your combo bowl because god-forbid-he-give-you-an-extra-piece-of-orange-chicken; no substitutions; no refunds; no exceptions; any of that—you know what we’re up against.

And you know it’s going to take a supreme haggling master to get a good deal out of these guys. Let’s hope Obama is good at saying things like, “come on buddy, we’re old friends, give me a good reduction on CO2.”

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