Done Vacationing in Lower Balconia!!

This past Summer we didn't travel much (one trip to Paris and another one to Paris and London) -- but we don't need to go far now that my son Nico has declared that our apartment is its own country!!  It even sports two charming resort regions: "Upper Balconia" and "Lower Balconia."

Here's a picture of the glorious accommodations we enjoyed during a recent vacation in Lower Balconia:

And here's a view of the gardens of Upper Balconia (note: you can see some cows living in a neighboring country):

Another thing we have in our country is a museum!!  Because what's a country without a national museum?

You can see the kids made an exhibit on Easter Island, plus one of dinosaurs and ancient sea animals, plus trilobites and other fossils in the drawers.  All of the drawers contain exhibits, in fact.

Nico has also written a history of our country, and Léo is the president.  Frankly, it's a great country to live in!!

My kids thought it was funny...

Léo just drank his fifth(?) (seventh, perhaps?) chocolate milk box of the day.

A couple of weeks ago, I was telling a friend that Léo gets 90% of his calories from chocolate milk.

Nico piped up with an earnest, "Really?"

And I chuckled and said, "Well, you know, 90% of all statistics are just made up!"

And Nico again piped up with an earnest, "Really?"

After I explained the joke, they loved it, and started using it any time anyone quotes any questionable statistics. ;)

So, basically, we have a big problem...

The thing that most worries me about this graphic is the part up at the top where it shows that fossil fuel reserves dwarf our safety budget.  Will there be any way to convince people not to burn those extra few thousand gigatons if they're right there for the burning?

I have a hard time believing that there's any chance of our species refraining from rendering our planet unfit for human habitation...