Alarmism Satire

I found one of ScrappleFace's posts today both funny and a good example of the "truth" of satire sometimes being more true than reality:

UN: Millions Not Suffering AIDS Now Doomed to Drown

by Scott Ott for ScrappleFace

(2007-11-20) — Top United Nations’ scientists plan to acknowledge this week that they wildly overstated the size and the spread of the AIDS epidemic, but that all the millions of people who don’t actually have AIDS will soon drown in the rising tide caused by man-made global climate change. [...]

“No matter how you look at it, the news is tragic, and more funding is needed,” said Peter Piot, the Belgian scientist whose U.N. AIDS agency reports have driven fund raising. [...]

Now, Mr. Piot said, the fate of countless millions has gone from bad to worse.

“A man who might have died quietly in his bed of AIDS,” said Mr. Piot, “now faces the terrifying specter of watching his neighbors slip from their rooftops one-by-one, screaming until the rising deep muffles their voices, knowing that he faces the inevitable moment when his fingers slip from the chimney, the brine subdues his own shrieks and the sea becomes his tomb.”

Mr. Piot denied accusations that he makes alarmist statements to serve a political and fundraising agenda rather than following rigorous scientific processes.

“My alarmist statements have resulted in billions of dollars in funding for research,” Mr. Piot said. “I’m making sure scientists get paid. What could be more scientific than that?”

Indeed. What could be more scientific than that?