Cold comfort from Allen

A stupefyingly appalling theory came to me during last week's heatwave as I sat stuck in traffic behind a Range Rover. I found myself coughing and spluttering involuntarily as my mouth filled with a sickly mass of vile glutinous goo. I initially thought my teeth had melted in the heat. But soon I realised it was bile that had been jettisoned by my gullet as a natural reaction to the ramifications of my postulation.

I'll desist from rambling, as I know you are all itching for me to reveal the root of my angst.

My heat-induced brainwave concerns SUVs. It occurred to me that these noxious devices are, by their very nature, self-perpetuating. That is probably the wrong word, but my head is so melted, as they say, nothing more apt springs - or slithers - to mind.

If you'll kindly indulge me for a few minutes, I'll expand.

SUVs are terrible men for contributing to the global warming. Yes, I know cows and fridges and factories are worse, but then I don't hate them. Have you ever been sneered at in traffic or nearly pulverised at a pedestrian crossing by some smug halfwit astride a cow or a fridge or a factory? Thought not.

Fact is, SUVs are evil. The more toxic fumes they belch into the atmosphere, the warmer the planet gets. And this has a direct affect on human stature.

It occurred to me that the colder it is, the smaller people are. People in colder climates require a higher metabolic rate to keep warm, thus robbing the body of energy that could be used for growth.

Think of it this way - are you not less hungry in the summer heat than in the depths of winter? The great feed of buttery spuds you'd gleefully larrup down your throat on a frozen December evening would have you baulking in horror were they presented to you on a balmy August afternoon.

I juggled these thoughts in my head all the way home to my lair, where I turned to the interweb for help, as is my wont.

As any argumentative bonehead knows, any theory can be proved unequivocally or destroyed beyond redemption by a mere fifteen minutes of selective Googling.

And so it transpired.

After approximately 357 seconds, I had discovered supporting evidence for my supposition from a well-regarded 19th Century anthropologist by the name of Joel Allen. (I had also discovered three watertight hypotheses that contradicted it, but we'll not mention them for now.)

According to Allen's Rule, mammals from colder climates have shorter limbs than their equivalents in warmer lands. This, he attested, was because the smaller the creature's surface area, the less heat is lost and vice versa. Being lanky, like the Masai, helps dissipate heat, whereas being knee-high to a transport minister, like the Inuit, keeps you nice and toasty.

I dug out some incontrovertible meteorological facts too, in case you are unconvinced. Average global temperatures rose over half a degree Celsius last century, while average human height in the developed world increased by around 15 centimetres in roughly the same period.

Call me a paranoid delusional truth-twisting nutjob if you will, but I reckon that the suggestion that there is a correlation between these two factors cannot be easily dismissed as far-fetched.

The bright sparks among you will have already worked out the conclusion that filled me with horror as I sat braising in my own juices behind that Range Rover.

It's this - the warmer SUVs make the weather, the more SUVs there will be. Humans will eventually become so tall to deal with the heat, they won't be able to fit into real cars, meaning everyone will be driving those loathsome behemoths by necessity.

It's the beginning of the end. Unless, like me, you're an atheist who'd rather chop off your legs than buy an SUV, I suggest you make peace with your God and resign yourselves to your awful fate.

Resistance is futile.