Global warming is a bunch of hot air. Acid rain is all wet. I will “park and ride” when you pry my cold, dead hands from the steering wheel of my five-speed, four-seat, three-door, too-expensive, one-occupant personal commuting vehicle.

        I believe the air has never been cleaner, that the free water from my tap is as good as snooty Perrier at $1.95 a bottle, and that if the global temperature creeps up a few degrees, Cincinnati might be able to support human life in February.

        But that does not mean I am less ecologically sensitive than a ruptured Exxon tanker. I care. Really.

Road kill

        If I see an endangered red squirrel or spotted owl on the highway, I promise to alert the proper busybodies at the EPA so they can send a rapid response team to scrape it up.

        They might need it to prohibit logging and mining so that the entire cast of Bambi can die as nature intended, in forest fires the size of Colorado.

        And if the EPA ever decides to do something useful, such as eradicating the round goby and the zebra mussel, I will send them a check on recycled paper.

        Round gobies and the zebra mussels are not a grunge band, although it's a pretty good name.

        They are undocumented alien critters that are invading America's lakes, rivers and streams.

        According to the Great Lakes Science Center of the U.S. Department of the Interior, zebra mussels arrived from Russia in 1988, riding in the ballast of an ocean freighter. Since then, they have infested all of the Great Lakes and have spread all the way to the Ohio River, the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico.

        Each female zebra mussel lays more than 1 million eggs a year. Just a year ago, they were hardly noticeable. Now their tiny striped clamshells litter the beaches, making a stroll in the sand feel like walking barefoot on broken dishes.

Ugly guppy

        They cluster like TV reporters at a plane crash - up to 1 million per square meter in Lake Erie. They plug water intakes, cling to boats and damage underwater shipwrecks.

        But at least their algae-appetite is making the lakes clearer.

        The round goby has no redeeming virtues.

        It's a homely little fish, with protruding frog eyes and a round fin on the bottom like a suction cup. Gobies came from the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, hitchhiking in ballast.

        They are about the size of the native perch, a fisherman's favorite. And that's the problem.

        Gobies eat the same diet, are more aggressive and breed faster.

        Dead, stinking gobies litter the breakwaters where fishermen refuse to throw back the cockroaches with flippers.

        This is no fishy theory about climate change. Our Great Lakes, one of the world's biggest supplies of fresh water, are being invaded.

        I guess “Kill the Gobies” won't as raise much green for the environmental-causes as “Save the Whales.”

        But the EPA needs a list of species that deserve to be endangered - starting with gobies and zebra mussels.

        E-mail: pbronson@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/bronson

Police discipline unequal
Water restrictions lifted
Year-round schools kick off
BRONSON: Critters worse than acid rain
Community rallies to open fresh market
For slain woman's father, justice a trial of patience
Profs, students head down the river
Teens return from intense times in Israel
Mt. Healthy schools put 8.99-mill levy on ballot
Blood shortage affects Tristate, Dayton
Forest Park aims for safety
Good News: Library welcomes pets, owners
Local Digest
You Asked For It
Congrats
Firefighter devoted to youth
Man injured when plane flips on landing
McNUTT: Sampler of events
Brownfield cleanup money awarded to best-laid plans
Ind. man killed, Ky. officer hurt in shootout
Suspect in shooting of Ky. trooper dead
Lawyers: Archbishop didn't break law
Prison offers inmates yoga classes