The Top 10 as We Hit Bottom
Since Ron Barrett illustrated the classic children’s picture book Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs in 1978, the forecast for our world has become considerably more dire.
Fast-forward 42 years to The Top 10 as We Hit Bottom (Skyhorse Publishing), a darkly satirical but real collection of “Top Ten” lists that highlight the predicament global warming and other impending catastrophes have put us into. The book has been researched and written by Jim Parry and illustrated by Barrett.
Though some might call this book a collection of “fake news,” the lists are compiled and culled from respected authorities like NASA, the United Nations, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. The creators feel the heartwarming illustrations, to temper the harsh messages of the text, will have readers laughing their way all the way down in the race to the bottom.
The book’s cover, reminiscent of the box for Screaming Yellow Zonkers (are you with me?), says the lists have been compiled by The Center for Impending Doom, for which Parry, voted Class Cynic of his high school graduating class, claims to be the founder.
The Top 10 may not solve any of these earthly issues, but can go a long way to increase awareness among the population. Among the topics of note: global warming, nuclear war, cyberwar, biowar, pandemics, earthquakes, tsunamis, supervolcanoes, blizzards, hurricanes and tornadoes.
Pumped yet? Okay: avalanches, landslides, wildfires, floods, droughts, famines, asteroids, alien attacks, solar storms, doomsdays past and future. There, feel better?
So here’s 10 of the many Top 10 lists to whet your appetite for Earth’s impending doom:
- “Top 10 species we’ll lose to climate change”
- “Top 10 avalanches mostly caused by global warming”
- “Top 10 climate change deniers”
- “Top 10 times we almost had a nuclear war”
- “Top 10 things that will happen when the Yellowstone Supervolcano erupts”
- “Top 10 ways to try to stop an asteroid”
- “Top 10 signs that the earth is about to be swallowed by a black hole”
- “Top 10 ways a particle accelerator mishap could destroy the world”
- “Top 10 end-of-world cults you can join now”
- “Top 10 ways aliens could kill us all”
So why did Barrett, a legendary children’s book illustrator, take on this project? “It’s not a very long journey,” he said. “The New York Times recently recommended Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs as one of the best books to teach children about climate change. It is, after all, a book about the weather gone awry. Unfortunately we have no toast boats to escape from becoming toast ourselves.”
“I feel very strongly that the earth will become uninhabitable unless we do something to eliminate all carbon emissions by tomorrow morning. Yet Jim’s meticulously researched book is about more than warming — it’s all the ways forces in and out of our control threaten our existence. And since I’m a guy who thinks Nazis are coming to pack me into a boxcar, impending doom has strong appeal.”
The lists are more than just lists. Listen to Parry’s introduction of the top species we’ll lose to climate change: “The polar bear is the poster-creature of climate change victims, but these ten (on the list) are actually closer to extinction. One of them — a mosaic-tailed rat — is already gone. Oh, we don’t care about losing a rat? Hey, just as rats leaving a sinking ship is a warning … maybe we should be warned.”
Some of the top 10 foods we’ll lose to climate change? Guacamole, apples, beer, rice and beans, peanut butter and french fries. Consider making alternate dinner and snack plans now.
The titles of some of the lists are enough to arouse curiosity, or at least make you read them a second time: “The Top 10 Steps by Which the Biggest Opportunity to Combat Global Warming Was Lost, 1979–1989.” Let me see, where was I in 1979?
Or: “The Top 10 Ways the Universe Could — Tomorrow or 2,000 Billion Years From Now — End.”
Among the Top 10 Quotes About the End of the World, here’s one from Mark Twain: “When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Kentucky, because everything there happens 20 years after it happens anywhere else.”
Wasn’t life so much simpler when your only worry was whether it would be raining meatballs later in the afternoon?
The Top 10 as We Hit Bottom is available for purchase.
Learn more about Ron on his BookTrib author profile page.
Learn more about Jim on his BookTrib author profile page.
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