William Blum's Well-Meant Feet of Clay

Image from BrightSide: This illusion is a real work of art by Rob Gonsalves, a Canadian painter of magic realism. Depending on where you look, you’ll see either an arch of a long bridge or a ship’s sails.


William Blum's Well-Meant Feet of Clay
 ... A sad addendum to "When I grow up I want to be like William Blum"

I've just read Blum's The Anti-Empire Report #159  in which he states - "The weather all over is not just extreme … It’s downright freakish." [all emphasis added by YYC]

• The argument I like to use when speaking to those who don’t accept the idea that extreme weather phenomena are largely man-made is this: Well, we can proceed in one of two ways:
• We can do our best to limit the greenhouse effect by curtailing greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide) into the atmosphere, and if it turns out that these emissions were not in fact a significant cause of the widespread extreme weather phenomena, then we’ve wasted a lot of time, effort and money (although other benefits to the ecosystem would still accrue).
• We can do nothing at all to curtail the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and if it turns out that these emissions were in fact the leading cause of all the extreme weather phenomena, then we’ve lost the earth and life as we know it.
• So, are you a gambler?

I admire Blum's writings very much and have used a couple of what I call his logic pictures in past blog posts -- for instance: the rationalization one about a doctor mistakenly lopping off your whole leg and rationalizing that at least you no longer have the knee pain you complained of. 

And this ironic one: "The people who created Facebook and Google must be smart. They’re billionaires, their companies are worth multi-multi billions, their programs are used by billions around the world".

Unfortunately, in my opinion, the one about "extreme weather" is not his best work. I've personally experienced the exact same argument from a Christian fundamentalist when I refused to accept as fact that Hell-fire and Damnation await me if I don't get "saved". It goes like this:

• I have nothing to lose by accepting Jesus as my Personal Saviour. If I am wrong, then, when I die, I will simply die. But if I'm right and there really is a Hell, then I have escaped it. Are you ready to gamble?

I don't even know if I have a soul (or if "climate change" is real), but I do have something to lose -- my integrity. If I take what I see as a coward's way out, then I will have to rationalize my cowardice by preaching the same "gospel" to others and, the more I preach it, the less trust I'll have in my own perceptions of anything.

Those who succumb to propaganda will also accept laws that limit human freedoms, and when only expensive electric vehicles are allowed on the roads, a few will be enriched, as always, but the rest of the population will be in deep (deeper?) debt to the bankers.

And war machinery will still use oil for "defence" - the greatest polluter on the face of the earth.

Stop the wars and see what happens to "climate change" - if anything.  Wouldn't that be a good test of the theory? Is it possible the whole climate issue is a trick designed to take people's minds off the wars?

Part of the trick was to install a Black US president and a female US Secretary of State, causing liberal activists to be less critical of the ghastly wars that followed for fear of seeming racist or anti-feminist. As a result, we will likely see unlimited production and use of war machinery well into the future.

In Canada, PM Trudeau, being ever-so-politically-correct, has appointed a female as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and if I say she's a vicious war-monger, I run the risk of being labeled anti-feminist.

People who have lived as long as William Blum and I can look back a long ways and recall a week-long rain in the late 40's that ruined the Christmas holidays, a summer heat wave (99 F) in the 50's that songs were written about, and ancestors long before who escaped the potato famine in Ireland.

None of which could possibly have been blamed on carbon pollution when horses pulled the farm wagons and the carts that delivered our bread and milk -- and "the war to end all wars" had ceased.

We can also recall David Suzuki - the Canadian voice of Science - predicting a coming ice age in the 70's, and later changing it to "global warming" -- which apparently was too specific for comfort, so "climate change" was substituted.

And don't forget the "the hole in the Ozone Layer". Is it shrinking, or is it not?

Blum's use of the term "life as we know it" is fuzzy as well. As Joni Mitchell* deduced: "We really don't know life at all."

We "know" what we're told, if told often enough, with sufficient authority and in as many confusing ways as possible. TV does a remarkable job of that. Gradually we accept mere possibilities as probabilities and then as facts. Advertisers count on that sad feature of the human mind.

All to say that, despite my respect for William Blum, I must remain agnostic about climate change and continue to accept it as just weather.  I will continue, however, to recycle (it's practical), and walk instead of ride when possible (it's good exercise), and forego an energy-sucking air conditioner (summer is short), etc. -- but I refuse to live in fear of the unknown.
 
* "I've looked at life from both sides now, from win and lose, and still somehow it's life's illusions I recall"... YouTube