'We are the walrus. Goo goo ga joob'

The lemming is a slightly plump little rodent closely related to the mouse, and, like the mouse, much misunderstood in the popular mind. In fact, unless you are a sort of lemming-ologist, there is probably nothing you think you know about the little fellow that is actually true.

There is, for example, a widely held belief that every few years the lemming population grows to such an enormously uncontrollable size -- they are very much like domestic mice -- that they migrate en masse and throw themselves off cliffs into the icy seas and die by the millions, leaving only a few to happily reproduce the population.

This legend is occasionally used as an anthropomorphic analogy for human behaviour, but, fortunately for the lemmings, there is not a word of truth in it. In fact, when adult lemmings get too enthusiastic about making little lemmings and pay no heed to the environmental and social consequences of overpopulation coupled with the under-availability of food, they simply kill each other or die of starvation.

Unfortunately, that is almost an exact anthropomorphic metaphor for much human behaviour.

But if you really want to run wild with your anthropomorphism, consider the walrus. The walrus is a very plump, very large sea mammal closely related to the seal except that it has really big tusks and boasts about a ton of weight over its little cousin.

What the lemming does not have in common with people, however, the walrus does. This is not widely known except among walrus-ologists, but the big brutes do have a tendency towards lemming-like behaviour of legend -- they are, it seems, prone to deadly stampeding, according to an article in Explore magazine by J.B. MacKinnon.

Two years ago, it seems, about 3,000 walruses were crushed to death when they panicked over something and stampeded, a not uncommon occurrence. Who would have though that these large and complacent -- well, let's not put too fine a point on it and just call them lazy-looking creatures -- would be prone to hysteria? But they are, and in that, they are more human-like than lemmings.

As MacKinnon puts it: "... walrus stampedes were seen as a glimpse into our own Mad Max, Soylent Green, Escape from New York future, complete with epidemic obesity. We are the walrus. Goo goo ga joob."

As much as we and the walrus might resemble each other in our faults and failings and our proclivity for being seized by the vapours when caught by surprise, and even as both the walrus and we have to concern ourselves about global warming -- we might, after all, soon be out of ice floes and home-heating oil respectively -- one worry we have, one reason to stampede that we have and our two-tusked friends do not is the electric light bulb.

The walrus, after all, gets six months of light and six months of darkness, all provided free of charge by the sun. We on the other hand, have to depend on light bulbs and so this conversation naturally comes down to the curse of compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs,) which are gaining in popularity because they are supposed to be more energy-efficient than the old incandescent bulbs.

Popular or not, and I really don't see how anyone can like them, the CFLs will pretty soon be the only light bulb available in the civilized world as governments everywhere, including Canada's and Manitoba's, rush -- dare we say stampede -- to ban incandescents and require fluorescents.

My house boasts one compact fluorescent bulb, in the kitchen of all places, and I hate it enough that I would gladly break it if I were not so pecunious and reluctant to pay to replace it.

The light this CFL casts is dismal. One can hardly see to cook, let alone read the newspaper at the kitchen table. The light let out by CFLs, particularly this one, is the kind of light one imagines is seen through the eyes of a dying man who sees things only dimly as death approaches.

That didn't stop Canadians, Americans and Europeans from stampeding to the CFLs, however, to the point the incandescent bulbs will soon be found only in museums and the secret rooms of Winnipeg survivalists who have realized that the heat they throw off pretty well offsets the electric energy savings of CFLs. It is, apparently, useful to remember that, like the walrus, we live in a cold climate.

That's not the only coin-crushing, self-defeating stampede that green hysteria has created. There are windmills, which look like hell, may pose health hazards, are inefficient energy producers and kill birds by the thousands.

There are electric cars, hybrid cars -- perhaps even pedal cars -- that are supposed to save fuel but whose popularity plummeted along with price of gasoline and which now sit unbought beside SUVs on car lots; there is hardly a green fad too feeble for us to stampede toward, regardless of the waste.

Curiously, the one useful thing that we have largely ignored is carbon sequestration, which would allow the continued use of oil, gas and coal by making their emissions environmentally friendly by removing them from the atmosphere, and the storage of nuclear waste, which would make nuclear power the cleanest and safest source of energy in a world that is increasingly starving for fuel.

Why that is, is hard to say, except that these things are not as environmentally sexy as green political causes, just more profoundly useful as future tools and safeguards. But then the walrus isn't really sexy either, he's just into stampedes, much like most of us.

tom.oleson@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 7, 2009 A15