There’s been much talk lately of the impending fallout from the melting of Earth’s polar ice caps. Lost in the quagmire of blame, denial, and rationalization among most of those doing the talking, the real importance of the issue is becoming as dilute as the oceans surrounding the ever-shrinking cubes at the top and bottom of our planet.

Sure, even if you can escape the — achem — polarization of the arguments for and against what is causing it, how to fix it, and whether we should even bother (because, really, Jesus is going to be here soon anyway), some of the consequences may be tugging at your heartstrings. You’ve surely seen pictures of a tired, water-logged polar bear unable to gather the energy to grab a bite to eat after her agonizing trek to find another hunk of ice large enough to support her weight. Sure, it makes you sad. “But, sad as it makes me, “ you ask yourself. “What impact will the loss of polar bears really have on my life?” Well, the sad answer is that it really may not. Polar bears are cute — but ultimately useless to humans.

The trouble is, the loss of polar ice caps affects something no one else has had the forethought to bring up. Something we all take for granted. Something that, even if we all are forced to become vegetarians due to the food chain’s collapse, we will surely be unable to live without. I’m talking, of course, about iceberg lettuce.

Even assuming the cows are able to survive our hostile new climate, what will our primary source of food — fast food restaurants — shred and then sprinkle liberally over our freezer-burnt “meat” patties? What will women pick out of their salads during first dates? How will “salad in a bag” manufacturers stay in business? What will people make bad “head” puns about?

So this is my plea to every one of you: please try to put aside the bickering over whether we are causing the change, whether the change is stoppable, or whether we should just wait for Jesus, and just think about the iceberg lettuce. We need to try to do whatever we can to preserve this essential part of our diets, while we’re still “a head.”

Defined tags for this entry: climate change, global warming, icebergs, polar bears