Up in Arms over Climate Change

Image from: Parenting With Love


Up in Arms over Climate Change

All very well and good - perhaps - but how do you like your plastic? Fried? Baked? So many choices.

This post was inspired by blogger pal, PennyforyourThoughts, and her recent post titled:
Pre-Emptive War on China, Russia, India as the ONLY Solution to Climate Change? 

I also randomly picked up a couple of what I think are extremely relative, and certainly pithy, comments on the Net; sorry I forgot to get the URL's:

"It's easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled." (Mark Twain )

"Change = life .. static involves a headstone " (commenter J London)

There are plenty of strong, credible voices out there that don't see climate as our worst problem, if indeed a problem at all - other than being a ready bolster to all sorts of profit motives and reasons to keep on building lucrative (for some) war munitions.

​(Time to re-read Major General Smedley Butler's WAR IS A RACKET.  Free online here.)

Other voices aim at whipping up fear in the general population, pointing in the direction of a situation that has by no means been proven to exist, and may well be not our biggest problem if it does exist.

Guardian: Thousands block roads in Extinction Rebellion protests across London

• The protests are part of a global campaign organised by the British climate group Extinction Rebellion, with demonstrations planned in 80 cities across 33 countries in the coming days.

"Extinction Rebellion": wouldn't you like to know who funds them? I certainly would. They are happy to tell you "Our Story", but you can be sure it's not the whole story. This takes organization on an extremely professional and expensive scale; so it's hardly a spontaneous, grass-roots uprising.

The Guardian has been proven to be a left-biased news outlet and has been credibly accused of some serious lies, but it does (kind of) stand to reason that the following may well be all too true:

Guardian (5 mos. ago): Microplastics found in human stools for the first time

• Study suggests the tiny particles may be widespread in the human food chain

Guardian (4/15/19): Winds carry microplastics ‘everywhere' - even on to remote mountaintops 

• The scientists were astounded by the quantities of microplastic falling from the sky in a supposedly pristine place such as the French stretch of the Pyrenees mountains. Researchers are now finding microplastics everywhere they look; in rivers, the deepest oceans and soils around the world.

National Geographics carries a similar story:

NatGeo: Microplastics are raining down from the sky

• Scientists discover large amounts of tiny plastic particles falling out of the air in a remote mountain location.

More pertinent and immediate to Canada, Penny has also brought to my wandering attention the story of how the Canadian government is stroking (with taxpayer dollars) yet another massive corporate conglomerate -- Loblaws and all of its numerous namesakes:

GlobalNews: Why is Loblaw getting $12M to install new refrigerators?

• That comes just a year and a half after the company fought against raising the minimum wage, admitted to a 14-year bread price-fixing scheme and ended up in a tax court battle last year that saw it ordered to pay back taxes worth roughly $368 million related to a banking subsidiary in the Caribbean.

CBC: Tories cry foul over $12M to help Loblaws buy energy-efficient coolers

• McKenna defended the funds Tuesday saying the greenhouse gas emissions reduced through the project will cut Loblaw's overall emissions by nearly a fourth and be the equivalent of taking 50,000 cars off the road.

Where does the government come up with this stuff? There's absolutely no way anyone can assess accurately the overall emissions advantage, and certainly not how many vehicles equal so many Loblaw's fridges.

Anybody who swallows this claptrap is in serious mental difficulty.

Here is just one scientific study (Oxford 2013) that admits there is no reliable measure of any carbon footprint. The fact that there are so many differing forms of measurement suggests to me that this is psychological mumbo jumbo designed, for political purposes, to convince a gullible public.

• ... a widely accepted and concrete definition of a carbon footprint does not exist at present.
• ... The boundary definition is unscientific, and carbon emission factors are uncertain. These issues need further research and analysis, especially in organization and product fields.
• ... a third-party verification of carbon footprint was suggested to be carried out, to add credibility and confidence to carbon reporting for public disclosure.

And if you prefer something more recent:

SCMP Sept. 2015: Many global warming studies may be wrong as carbon dating found to be highly unreliable for organic matter over 30,000 years old

YaleEdu: 2017:

• Right now science is not up to the task, say the people in charge of assessing our annual emissions of CO2. There is, they say, no sure way of independently verifying whether national governments are telling the truth about their own emissions or of knowing by how much global anthropogenic emissions are actually increasing.

NCBI: 2018: 

• The methods assume that observations in a time-series are precisely dated, but this assumption is often violated when calibrated radiocarbon dates are used because they usually have highly irregular uncertainties. As a result, it is unclear whether the methods can be reliably used on radiocarbon-dated time-series ...

It's easy to see why Trudeau so frequently harps on his desire to improve things for the "middle class". He knows it's what the voter needs to hear; but it's not his top priority by any means. Getting re-elected this year is the driving force behind his every action and every word that comes out of his mouth. The man is showing definite signs of having been bought and paid-for by corporations.

Need I say it again: being ruled by corporations is called "fascism", and I'm rather partial to this definition by Bogdanor, quoting George Orwell:

• "It is usual to speak of the fascist objective as the beehive state, which does a grave injustice to bees. "A world of rabbits ruled by (weasels) would be nearer the mark."

Related on YYC: He's such a nice boy that Justin ... who'd have thought he was part weasel?

It's not difficult to tell who are right-leaning and left-leaning media outlets. The right-leaning are making hay out of this:

CTV: Loblaws refrigerators the wrong place to shop for votes

• Environment Minister Catherine McKenna seemed blissfully unaware she was hosting a communications disaster.

I don't think McKenna was unaware at all. (Scroll down to the second video in the GlobalNews article. She's much better rehearsed in the top video, which clearly is the most recent one.) She looked pretty nervous as she mouthed by rote, in stilted fashion, the platitudes she'd been instructed to issue.  If Trudeau keeps her out in front with this thing, how long will she be able to withstand the heat, or is her conscience already bothering her too much?

It doesn't take a massive brain to figure out that it's the "middle class" who will pay, in increased consumer costs, not only for fuel but also for food, and eventually for government-mandated purchases of electric vehicles -- not to mention the cost of perpetually prolonging the SNC-Lavalin court proceedings.

There's no doubt at all from whence Loblaws will extract the funds to pay its share of the cost of the new coolers! People have to buy food, don't they?

Lest anyone imagine it's only the Liberals whose hands are soiled, the Conservative backlash may appear to be a show of concern for the average citizen, but the driving force behind its fight is a cynical play for votes and ultimate control of our country's resources.

It's too bad that so many would-be "leaders" have so little strength of character that they scrap like children, point the finger at anything and anybody but themselves, and lie and exaggerate constantly to cover their own backsides.

You should read the full CTV article above; it also suggests that Trudeau is not as soft on immigration as he lets on, and this may be his way of appealing to the "right" vote.

Both Scheer and Trudeau belong in a circus.

Canstock photo.