It Could Happen the Day After Tomorrow

OK. I admit it. I watch The Weather Channel. Seeing those green blobs and white areas crossing the nation, the big H's and L's, the blue sawtooth lines and the red lines with the little bumps on it. What can be more fascinating than that?

Well, maybe this. In the last couple weeks, The Weather Channel summoned up a Category 5 hurricane to hit New York City and a F5 tornado to churn through the heart of Dallas. This Sunday: Mount Rainier erupts, burying Seattle in a flood of mud from the melted snows from the mountain. Sort of like Mount St. Helens--with a major metropolitan city in the neighborhood.

The program is called "It Could Happen Tomorrow," and I'm not sure what they're planning in the weeks to come. Earthquake in San Francisco? Blizzard burying the Twin Cities with 50 inches of wind-driven snow? Locusts invading the wheat belt (as in "The Good Earth")? Rain of toads? Hurricane breaching the levees in New Orleans? (Wait. They did that last fall.)

I don't know. There seems to be an apocalypse complex among TV programmers. They seem to be in competition, trying to concoct the most extreme scenario of natural disasters in order to scare the bejeezus out of everybody.

Example: Lately the Discovery Channel and Learning Channel have had regular helpings of natural disaster programming--both historical (all the tsunami stories) and speculative (Yellowstone National Park blowing up, since it's a massive volcanic system--it's done so twice already, you know).

And when all else fails, they can sic a massive comet or asteroid into the heart of Toronto. Or Paris. Or wherever. I suppose a few miles plus or minus won't make much of a difference to the human condition. We'll all be toast, either way.

It must have started with the movie "The Day After Tomorrow," in which every conceivable worst weather disaster happens all at once. Laughable storyline, really.

Of course, in the real world we are seeing climate change. Everyone who has their eyes open (which excludes the leaders of the industrialized nations) can see that. Hurricanes have become worse. The arctic north is melting away. The oceans are warming. Weather patterns are becoming slower to change and more extreme. More drought. More areas where the rain just never stops. It's fact. It's real.

But they can't get people interested in that. On the other hand, volcanoes and hurricanes and tornadoes and tsunamis--they're very visual! They're cool to watch! Spectacular video! I mean, would you rather watch that or watch average temperatures creeping up slowly but surely? Would you rather watch that volcano exploding or watch Greenland melting? Watch that F5 tornado--or watch another species pass away quietly and permanently?

Hey, it's entertainment! It's not like it's the end of the world!