Oh, Oh, Oh, It’s Magic!
It’s magic you know
Never believe it’s not so
It’s magic you know
Never believe it’s not so
— David Paton / William Lyall (performed by Pilot, 1975)
My latest out-of-the-box plan for fixing climate change: Let’s use magic! Political, technological, and socialogical solutions clearly are going nowhere (as are fossil fuels). It seems like the only power than can save us is magic. So let’s get on it!
Ireland must immediately mount massive, organized searches for leprechans and faries. The rest of Britain the same for pixies, elves and faeries. (Any dwarves encountered may be recruited for carbon sequestration projects.) The EU may also have some elves and other magical creatures that can help us.
Dwarves may be recruited for carbon sequestration projects.
We must mount joint public-private expeditions to the ends of all rainbows. Who know what magic may be discovered there? And if all that is found are the legendary pots of gold, why, they can be used to fund universal energy efficiency upgrades and solar panel installations.
Stage magicians David Copperfield, Chris Angel, Melinda the First Lady of Magic, and Penn and Teller must be offered billion-dollar awards if they can make the greenhouse gasses disappear from the atmosphere. They can use either true magic or stage illusions, we don’t care which, as long as the GHGs are gone.
Here’s one every person in a first- or second-world country, and many in third-world countries, can contribute to: All bottles and oil-type lamps (but not Coleman camping lanterns), especially old, dusty ones, must be rubbed. A massive publicity campaign must be mounted using the slogan, “Rub one out for climate change today!” An international panel of philosophers must be convened immediately to formulate the most beneficial possible three wishes for any genies that may appear. Those genies can be crafty!
Rub one out for climate change today!
Governments around the globe should appeal to their witches, warlocks, and wizards. If any dragons can be located, they may be of use too as they are said to be magical. Even if not magical, perhaps they can provide a low-carbon energy source. Unicorns too—if not magical, they can at least provide carbon-free and poop-free transportation and hauling. I mean, I believe them to be poop-free, but if they do poop, it’s Skittles, so that won’t be so bad.
Space aliens may be helpful too. While not, strictly speaking, magical, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic and may be able to solve the climate crisis.
Let’s not forget the most popular magic of all, religion. All persons of faith—in fact, even non-believers—must spend at least two hours a day praying to their God or gods (and saints and prophets and angels) to deliver humanity from, and forgive humanity for, its great climate sins. All governments must mandate this two-hour daily prayer period, and the prayers must be for all living creatures and plants and oceans and fields on earth, not just for members of one’s own faith. To ensure the latter requirement, a panel of leaders from each religion shall develop the wording of the exact prayers to be prayed, and these prayers will be subject to approval by government committees. Better yet, approved by that panel of philosophers that is already working on the genie wishes.
As a last resort (only!), we may even want to appeal to Satan and His demons. We should start recruiting martyrs who are willing to sell their immortal souls to save (the rest of) humanity.
The nice thing about Magic Solutions is that they do not merely mitigate the devastating effects of global climate change, they can actually put things back to “normal”, back to the way they were in, for example, the Roaring 1990s. In fact, we can even use magic to make a better world than we’ve ever had before: a post-capitalist, AI/robot/magic-driven paradise with equality, plentitude, and respect for all persons and all life.
Whew! It is such a relief to have finally solved global warming once and for all!
It is such a relief to have finally solved global warming once and for all!
What? You are laughing at my proposal? You are telling me that magic and benevolent gods don’t exist? Oh ye of little faith! In that case, you should also stop talking about carbon capture and sequestration, carbon-reduction “targets”, clean coal, oil-industry “solutions”, “net-zero”, electric vehicles, 1.5°C and 2°C thresholds, nuclear fusion, geo-engineering, and climate-change bills that mandate more oil drilling and pipelines; and focus only on shutting down fossil-fuel energy generation/usage and restoring the natural world’s ecosystems. Or else you do believe in magic, so bring on the leprechauns and pixies.
Focus only on shutting down fossil-fuel energy generation/usage and restoring the natural world’s ecosystems
In the comments, please let me know of any sources of magic I overlooked. You may be helping to save the world.
— Lannie Rose, 8/2022
P.S. Look up the Youtube video of the song Magic by Scottish rock group Pilot. It’s better than you remember. Beautiful guitar solo! (Pilot later morphed into the Alan Parsons project. Parsons was the producer on Magic. Thank you, Wikipedia!)
