During a recent visit to Florida a friend mentioned that baby sealions are now being brought to Florida from California to balance balls on their noses and amuse little children. What’s that about? I asked.

It turns out that, owing to the rapidly warming ocean, sealions have little to eat and have to travel long distances to find food for their offspring. Sometimes they never come back; increasingly the baby sealions are starving to death. Humans are capturing them and introducing them to the joys of profitable capitalism: they have joined the dolphins and the whales in amusement parks, taking donuts from the hands of kids.

This should please all those who want to see the unemployed doing useful work, even though it is “child” labor and well under the minimum wage.

I think it is a dreadful commentary upon what we have done to the natural world. However, I am accused of sometimes being too negative, so here goes: how delightful for little children!