Climate Debt

There's a new buzzword about to sweep the country -- once the climate conference in Copenhagen begins, we will be hearing ad nauseam about "climate debt." What is climate debt? YOU OUGHTA KNOW -- YOU OWE IT!

For the past 100 years, you see, the United States has polluted the earth with so many greenhouse gases that will damage so many lives throughout the world from Global Warming. We -- you, me, here, now -- owe our wealth to those whose lives will be destroyed when the oceans rise and the moon turns to blood. Al Gore says by 2015, my minivan will have displaced millions of Africans and Pacific Islanders and Floridians from their watery homes to wretched refugee camps inland.

Who do you think is going to pay for these displaced people? Oh, silly you -- DON'T WORRY! The United Nations has a plan. YOU, the unwitting and generous citizen of the United States, will pay! You, gentle reader, owe the developing world for your use of your car, your home, your electricity, your gas (um, natural gas), and the general way you go about your life taking all your pollutants for granted. YOU owe them all.

Of course, no one owes US a debt for creating a climate (punny!) where Edison could invent the light bulb and bring man out of the darkness and increase his productivity. No one owes US a debt for inventing the air conditioner -- thank you, Willis Haviland Carrier. We don't ask for the world to pay us for inventing modern anesthesia and medicines like the polio vaccine and antibiotics. We don't ask anything for creating more wealth in 100 years than the earth has seen since the dawn of man and sharing more educational opportunities, capital and innovation than any other nation on earth. Ever.

Of course, with real unemployment at 17.5% and a stock market teetering under the weight of its own over-valuation, I don't have a lot of extra cash. So my plan is to make a LOT of these pies and give them to the UN -- maybe then they'll leave the kids' college funds untouched.

TURTLE PUMPKIN PIE

1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons caramel sauce, divided

1 graham cracker pie crust

1/2 cup chopped pecans

2 pkg. (3.4 oz) vanilla INSTANT pudding

1 cup cold milk

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

1 (8 oz) tub Cool Whip

Pour 1/4 cup caramel sauce into bottom of pie crust, and top the caramel with pecans. In a medium bowl, blend pudding mixes, milk, pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice until blended. Fold in 1 1/2 cups Cool Whip and spoon into crust. Refrigerate 2 hours. Top with remaining Cool Whip and caramel sauce and serve to hungry guests. Or refugees.