The Today show this morning featured a segment on how the natural world responded during the past year of pandemic. Some things were interesting, such as deer and turkey in the streets of Boston. Others a bit frightening, such as monkeys mobbing people for food - these monkeys relied on tourists to feed them and for the last year, no tourists.

But the prize went to this one global climate change scientist. His take? The reduction in carbon emissions over the past year showed to him that if we wanted to, if we REALLLLLY buckled down, we could meet the challenge posed by impending climate change.

Well, yeah. If we are willing to stop flying anywhere, driving anywhere, doing anything. If we are willing to put our economies in lockdown, driving people out of work, having to pay them from the federal budget to keep the economy from collapsing. If we are willing to see people in hours-long bread lines, people facing eviction because they have no work and no money, mortgages in default. If we are willing to see whole sectors of our economy maybe never come back. Then sure, we can do what he thinks is required to meet the challenge of global climate change. Spoken like a true academic, isolated from any of the effects that he would impose on others, never having seen any interruption in income this past year.

Pinhead.