By Spencer D Blair | Guest Writer
Since time immemorial, Santa Claus has checked his list not once, but twice to determine which of the Earth’s children are naughty and nice. His fastidious accounting then sets him off on a one-night journey around the world to distribute presents to the good children who wake up and reap the rewards of their good behaviors.
But what about the naughty children? How are they punished for their annual sins? With dirty, environmentally unsafe coal that will inevitably kill us all in the upcoming climate apocalypse. That is why this year, my colleagues and I at the United Nations Climate Action Summit are calling on Saint Nick to end this reckless act of ecoterrorism that endangers future generations of naughty AND nice children and join us on the right side of history.
In 2019, there are an estimated 656 million Christians that identify as children worthy of a visit from Kris Kringle. If only 10% of those children are judged naughty, then the resulting 65 million lumps of coal could release over 72 million pounds of CO2 into our atmosphere. That would put Father Christmas slightly above the CO2 emissions of 3,314 Ford F-150s over the course of one year. And that’s only ten percent.
Based on personal experience I would venture a guess that of 50-60% of Earth’s Christian children are naughty.
Because Pere Noel doesn’t release his figures, based on personal experience I would venture a guess that of 50-60% of Earth’s Christian children are naughty, meaning that the 438 million pounds of CO2 Nikolaos of Myra may pump into the very air we breathe would rank him above 19 countries. Every time a child misbehaves, the timer on climate catastrophe winds down.
Every piece of coal Santa distributes is a harbinger of environmental doom for all children, leveraging the fate of the “nice” on the “naughty.” Why not then go all out? For every poorly behaved child, Santa puts down a panda. Are there a bunch of bad boys and girls in your town? Santa dumps the chemical runoff from a lithium-ion battery factory into your water source. If global naughtiness levels break 75%, Santa might as well just detonate a thermonuclear missile in the atmosphere.
Instead of Santa delivering something that is rapidly destroying the glaciers his ancestral home rests upon, he should focus on reversing the effects of his misguided discipline. If Kringle delivered a seed for a single tree to each rapscallion, he could pull 314 million pounds of CO2 out of the atmosphere annually. Perhaps he could punish the wicked children with one of the 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic garbage in the ocean? Or, and this might sound absolutely wild, he could just not give them anything at all?
After rumors of slave labor, copyright infringement, and animal abuse issues, it’s time at least for Santa Claus to start undoing the damage of his centuries long partnership with Big Coal. After all, doesn’t Santa want to be on Greta Thunberg’s nice list? ♦