RUBBERY SHRUBBERY Post 52
This is the Rubbery Shrubbery blog, where you’ll learn how Yachats (YAH-hots), Oregon, acquires a Major League Baseball franchise. To learn more about Yachats (“Home of the World’s Largest Ocean”) and its inhabitants—called Yachatians (yah-HAY-shuns)— please go to this page or go to GoYachats.
Today we have a brief news item from the city of Longyearbyen (see Fig. 1) on Spitsbergen, an island of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway.
Thaw Could Spoil Longyearbyen’s Bid for a Baseball Team
by Henrik Jansen
LONGYEARBYEN, SVALBARD —The plans of the Yachats Smelt, latest addition to Major League Baseball, to field a farm team here in Earth’s northernmost city, are now imperiled by the massive climate change currently happening throughout the world (except in Oklahoma).
Figure 1. Longyearbyen’s colorful houses before they started sinking into the muck.*
This brave town has been suffering an unprecedented intense thawing because of the heat escalation in the Arctic region. Permafrost beneath Longyearbyen has turned to slush. This frozen layer is up to forty meters thick, so when it melts the town is afloat on a sea of…stuff. Finding a solid field for baseball is unlikely without venturing outside town limits into the wilds where there are plenty of reindeer (see Fig. 2) and lots of polar bears (see Fig. 3). Lots and lots of polar bears. Lots more than you can imagine.
Figure 2. Svalbard reindeer. They go behind mountains, out of sight of humans, to practice flying.**
Anyone going out into polar bear country is required to carry a rifle or bazooka (these can be rented in town). Note, however, that polar bears are legally protected, humans not so much. Rather than shoot a bear, it is suggested the human attempt to come to a verbal understanding.
Figure 3. Polar bear, having gotten up on the wrong side of the berg this morning.***
But if no understanding can be reached with the bear, the human is still somewhat protected by law, kind of—it’s illegal for humans to die in Svalbard (and by extension, it’s illegal for a bear to kill a human). The problem is that corpses buried in the permafrost don’t decompose, an embarrassing situation remedied by requiring anyone considering dying to do it someplace else. With the new balmy climate, though, Longyearbyen might strike this law from the books and let people die wherever they want, thus rendering a clear conscience to the bears.
Although Longyearbyenites don’t understand baseball, they were looking forward to having a team and are extremely disappointed about the turn of events. Community leader Knut Harr expressed it best, “We wanted a new sport—any new sport. We’re getting sick and tired of having nothing but reindeer games.”
Figure 4. Downtown Longyearbyen. The North Pole is on the other side of that mountain. About 600 miles on the other side.****
* Photo copyrighted by Svalbard Global Seed Vault/Peter Vermeij.
** Photo copyrighted by Biopix: A Neumann
*** Photo copyrighted by Jerzy Strzelecki.
**** Photo copyrighted by Jennifer Dombrowski.
Next time: The Smelt staff is too busy preparing for entry into the big leagues and has little time for this blogging nonsense. Therefore, each Monday the Rubbery Shrubbery blog will have brief news reports on the progress of the Smelt organization. Also, we will have a guest blogger from time to time. Thanks for reading this stuff.
Be sure to check out the “Yachats Smelt” page on Facebook, and “Like” us if you’re so inclined. Thank you.