Climate Change, Cloud Computing, and Your Mother

If recent soundings are any indication, most people have now boarded the good ship Climate Change for its historic voyage to the bottom of the sea. Propelled by the irreversible thrust of its narcoleptic crew, it promises the scenic wonders of a submersible with none of the pesky accoutrements—portholes for example—that only obscure the view.

Very well, but where does that leave the rest of us? Perched, high and dry, above our keyboards and smartphones, we who understand that cyberlife goes on have little to gain by jumping ship. Even as our roofs are torn away by tornadic winds, we bask in the promise of cloud computing, and all the sunshine that comes in the 120-degree aftermath of the storm.

I'm only joking, of course. Cloud computing in the face of climate change? What if there are no clouds, or worse yet, what if all we have to work with are stratospheric nacreous clouds? You know, those nitric- and sulfuric-laden clouds that turn data to goo. And what about a cloud with a name like cumulus congestus? I don't want to rely on a decongestant every time I need more storage space. Do you?

Of course not. And if your photos happen to be stored in a cirrus duplicatus cloud, how can you be sure that the duplicates haven't fallen into the hands of the enemy? I won't even get you started on cirrocumulus undulatus clouds. It goes without saying that undulating data are unstable data, unstable data aren't happy data, and unhappy data are unstable data.

In other words, if you're unable to sleep amid the pitiful wails of data languishing in the nebulous computing-clouds known as cirrostratus nebulosus, you will know in your heart—and in my spleen—that mammatus lacunosus does, in fact, mean exactly what you had feared. Yes, mama is full of holes, and no, she won't be swaddling your pwecious data anymore, you little punk.