‘Did you know that there is a heat advisory for today, asked Billy B.? ‘What is a heat advisory,’ replied Chet. ‘They are issued when it gets so hot that the heat can make you ill,’ Billy B. said. ‘I feel ill often when I am outdoors under the Sun…especially the noonday Sun,’ Neva J. commented. ‘The summer sun is so glaring and intense that houses and even a small town…spontaneously combusted,’ Jane commented. ‘I do not know many people who have an air conditioner in their home…or car…just window fans that you place on exhaust out of a window at night and attempt to draw in some cooler night air,’ Darryl mentioned. ‘And that is not very effective…I can tell you as I lay in a pool of my own perspiration…and clasp my damp sheets,’ Billy B. said with a grimace. ‘It makes me appreciate fall and the cool breezes of autumn,’ Chet said with a smile on his face.

As Chet and Billy B. were watching ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’ at the Orpheum Theatre and enjoying the luxurious air conditioning…Chet had an idea. He wondered what Klaatu, the alien who looked like a human in the movie and played by Michael Rennie, would do to solve the problem of the heatwave? ‘Ride bicycles more and stop burning fossil fuels,’ Klaatu said. Now, this was indeed a surprise to Chet as Klaatu was speaking directly to him…and there he was…in the movie. ‘Hello Klaatu…how is it that I am in ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’ and yet I can see myself eating popcorn and setting next to Billy B. in the audience,’ said Chet. ‘Well…you had a question and I thought that I would take a moment to answer it for you…as you can see by the theme of the movie…Klaatu and Gort came to Earth to warn the inhabitants of the planet that they must cease to be warlike or they would have to be destroyed,’ said Klaatu. ‘The question you have postulated will in the next few decades become the most important question that any occupant of earth can ask,’ Klattu continued. ‘Being hot and thinking little of it…will soon not be an option for earthlings,’ Klattu said with a sigh. ‘The problem of Global Warming was not on many people’s radar in the 1960s…but in the next century…it will be all anyone can talk about,’ Klattu said in little more than a whisper. ‘The earth is a great and fragile gift…the balancing of mankind’s needs…are mostly mankind’s wants…while the needs of the earth are almost being totally ignored,’ Klattu said.

Chet remembered his mysterious talk with Klaatu. He understood what had been a nuisance…was now a nemesis. The other day it was 104 degrees in the United Kingdom. The glaciers were rapidly melting. Tornadoes were now a mile wide when they touched the earth. Yet people still were fighting over political/religious conspiracy theories.