Sheryl Crow Said What?

Posted by Greg Allen on 04.24.2007

If you ask her, the real problem with Global Warming is that you poop too much, or at least that you use too much paper when you wipe. In another edition of Paradigm Shift, Greg Allen tells you why Sheryl Crow is a genius.

If you're like me, Sheryl Crow's recent comments probably convinced you that she's the dumbest person in the history of mankind. As she put in on her blog, the solution to global warming is very simple:

"I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. Now, I don't want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required."

I was all set to write today's column on how Sheryl is probably going to single-handedly set environmental lobbying in the United States back twenty years, how she should probably be assigned a guardian (as she's far too stupid to take care of herself), and how sad it is when pop artists pretend like they understand politics.

Turns out I'm the idiot.

The quote was a joke—a marvelously deployed, picked up by major news organizations worldwide as real fact, joke. Turns out Sheryl Crow is pretty damn smart.

The joke was pretty risky. Even as I write this, the front page of Google News still links to an article bashing Crow's "crackpot" ideas. I'd be willing to bet far more people find out she wrote the idea than find out it was tongue in cheek. That doesn't mean it will turn out to have been a bad idea.

What does Crow gain? For one thing, she's exposed the lacking journalistic credentials and made a fool of a lot of conservative pundits. Even Rush Limbaugh jumped in on the fun during his radio show:

"Sheryl, let me just warn you about something. If you actually try this, you actually go out and use one square, or even just three, for every pesky bathroom visit, the only thing you're going to be attracting in the next couple days is flies"

(transcript here)

So in case you were worried Rush actually attempts to hear directly from those he freely attacks, worry not. Sheryl Crow has proven quite plainly he has no desire to take even the most basic of journalistic measures to fact check. Granted, I usually don't attempt to interview the people I write about either, but I'm just a measly blogger. He's a radio personality with 13.5 million listeners (on a bad week). I'd bet he has the resources to make those kind of interviews happen. You'd think he would have learned to get his story straight after the Michael J. Fox affair... alas.

The other possible outcome is less certain: conceivably, the whole affair could be a boon to environmentalists, who have long tried to shake their cliche image as pot-smoking, tree-hugging, hippies. Crow has (rather brilliantly) proven her ability to take a step back and laugh at herself. In politics, sometimes that's the most persuasive way to establish credibility. Think Barack Obama calling himself "a skinny kid with a funny name." Who knows? Maybe Crow's joke will aid the green-minded's more realistic proposals in seeming just that—realistic.

In related news
Crow is also making headlines for her recent encounter with Karl Rove. The night before Earth Day, at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, Crow and the producer of An Inconvenient Truth, Laurie David, approached Rove at his table and said "I urge you to take a new look at global warming." Something tells me their initial greeting wasn't quite that formal, but according to them, Rove went nuts:

"He went zero to 100 with me," said David. "I've never had anyone be so rude." The argument got so heated that at one point Crow exclaimed to Rove, "You work for me." Rove, ever vigilant in his attempt to come off like a bad Bond villain, replied, "No, I work for the American people."

I did some research on the topic, and as it turns out, Sheryl Crow just so happens to be an American citizen. Perhaps Rove meant to imply that Sheryl Crow lacks personhood. Her being a liberal, that analysis lines up rather well with Rove's actions since he got into politics.

In slightly less related news
The whole Global Warming issue is really really complex, so I won't bastardize the debate by blurbing its various intracies. I would, however, like to discuss one aspect that is commonly overlooked in American media discourse, and that issue is how the international community views America's intentions related to the issue.

I'm sure everybody's heard by now the accusations that the Bush administration is merely in the pocket of the oil companies. That view certainly seems to be popular in Europe, but amongst the world's poorer countries there is another, less well-known about theory. They think the Bush administration not only believes in global warming, but is planning on using it as a weapon.

It sounds beyond outlandish, but that's the view that Professor Stacey Vandeever related to me while I was taking a class of his at Harvard. According to Vandeever, it's not uncommon at all to hear from the ambassadors of foreign countries (including some democratic ones) that President Bush thinks global warming will devastate developing countries, including potential future rivals like China, far worse than it will the United States. The final result may be a weakened United States, but relative to the shattered economies of the rest of the world, the US will be stronger than ever.

The story seems a bit unlikely to me (after all, the entire state of Florida being underwater sounds pretty devastating). Still, the fact that so many world leaders are buying into it is indicative of a larger problem for America: the default hypothesis for foreigners on basically every international issue is to assume our government has nothing but the worst of intentions.

Call me crazy, but I think that isn't a small deal. The USA has never quite been the saint junior high history textbooks paint it as, but never before have so many on this planet been convinced our nation is a genuine force for evil. That mindset might seem irrelevant, but the US diplomats who meet fierce resistance on what used to be inconsequential issues would probably disagree. Global warming isn't the only cause of that ill will (obviously), but the US could do worse in looking for issues on which to start rebuilding its reputation.

Whatever method the international community finally uses to address global warming probably won't involve toilet paper. We can hope, however, that the solution is as brilliant and simple and persuasive as Sheryl Crow's latest gambit.