Climate Change

Let’s Assume its Real

Let’s be honest. Most of the people reading this are not big climate change believers. Most of you don’t think Greta Thunberg is a modern day Joan of Ark, leading the righteous charge against those who wish to destroy us. Most of you think that she is a spoiled teenager who has never heard the word no… and has come up with the biggest con since the “sick day”. She’s decided she won’t go to school until people change the weather for her. Well… just to make sure you know where I’m coming from… I agree with you..

Having said that, I am a lover of the outdoors. I am a child of the Blue Ridge Mountains, perhaps the most primeval of the Appalachians. Thick clay and moss slick ground is what I learned to walk on. It’s home. I am also of the Low Country of South Carolina. The salt and heat are in me as much as the campfire smoke and early fog of my mountains are.

I also love animals. I am overjoyed at the recovery of the American Buffalo. It swells my heart that in this modern world there is still room for Brown Bears, Grey Wolves, Elk, Eagles, and Mountain Lions. I want to conserve these resources and pass a better natural world to our children than our parents gave to us.

If there is something threatening that, I am interested. I want to help. So… for the sake of this article, let’s assume that climate change is real. Not the AOC, everyone is dead in 12 years climate change… but the sane climate change than most scientists agree is happening. And most of those same scientists agree that human beings are contributing to it.

Also… lets explore why virtually nobody gives a damn, except for to pay a little lip service in front of liberal friends to make sure they get their “good person” bonafides.

Why Doesn’t Anyone Actually Care?

Oh… let me tell you why nobody is listening to the climate activists:

1. The People Talking About It Are Insufferable

I want you to take a moment and think about the last conversation you had or the last interview you watched with a climate activist. How was that experience for you? I can tell you how it was for me… it was annoying and depressing at the same time. Depnoying… Or Anpressing… One of those.

Seriously, you can’t watch a sunset with these people without them telling you that there aren’t going to be anymore sunsets soon. You can’t talk about a pretty mountain without hearing about people clearcutting the Amazon. God forbid you try to watch a nature documentary. Every stinking animal they show is about to be gone forever. And worse still, they say it in this slightly accusatory tone… like it’s my fault the goddamn polar bears are hot.

Do they offer any solutions? Of course not. I just have to use less carbon… whatever the hell that means. How much carbon do you think I use? It’s not like I have a coal fired power plant in my apartment. Jesus Harold Christ on a cracker McKinsey… what the hell do you want from me?

2. The Celebrities

HEY! YOU GOT A MOUSE IN YOUR POCKET?

Look, I like Leonardo DiCaprio just fine. I think he’s a fine actor. I don’t begrudge his celebrity or his fortune. Seriously, God bless and fair winds and all that. But do me a favor and shut the hell up.

It isn’t just Leo. There are piles of them… Always lecturing and whining. Do you see them giving up their yacht parties in Capri? Do you see them bicycling to their next movie shoot? Of course not. They are living their lives and paying a little extra to make sure their mansion is as efficient as it can be. Fine.

But as I mentioned before, I live in an apartment. My car gets 38 miles to the gallon. I don’t litter. I’ve never flown on a private jet. I reuse my bags from Whole Foods when I remember. What do you want from me?

Why should my taxes go up? Seriously… how does that help anyone other than bureaucrats who want bigger budgets? Take a minute and explain it to me, you charismatic son of a bitch. The good lord knows you love to hear yourself talk about this shit… explain why voting for a communist helps cool down the polar bears. I’m listening.

And if Leo ever actually reads this… I’m not just picking on you. Frankly, I probably like you more than a lot of the others. I think you might actually believe what you are saying. But still, stop telling me about hot polar bears and tell me what you want out of me, other than money. You have plenty of money… I need mine.

3. The Hysterics and the Lies

Would the people concerned about climate change actually like to convince people of their position? Let’s assume the answer is yes, although there is some evidence to the contrary. Well, if they would like to convince people, why on earth are they so insistent that hysterics, predictions that never come to pass, and outright lies are the best ways to do it?

Florida is supposed to be underwater now. Ghana, in West Africa, is supposed to be a desert wasteland by now (Ghana Image Search). Lake Mead is supposed to not exist.

Just take a look at these 50 predictions that never came to pass…

50 Years of Climate Predictions

Now, let me ask you a question… what predictions did come to pass? When Katrina hit New Orleans, we were told by pretty much all the elites that this was the new norm. Major Hurricane impacts to the US are down significantly since then. Sea levels were supposed to have noticeably risen… They haven’t. At least not where I go to the beach. Remember the Maldives Islands? Guess what… THEY ARE STILL THERE. I know, nuts. Perhaps all that climate change guilt money we sent them helped them gain altitude or something.

Look, if you tell me the end is nigh, and you ask me to sell all my stuff and meet you at the mountain top for the coming of the lord, I might just do it. But when I get up there and the lord doesn’t come, you don’t get to change the date. You only get one shot at that. If you get it wrong, the lord can just let me know he’s coming himself… because you’ve already shown yourself to be either dishonest or crazy. Either way, I’m out.

4. Insulting Anyone With Legitimate Questions

What are you, some kind of climate change denier? You’re probably racist too. Trumper.

Yeesh… are people tired of that crap. Look, the activists said a bunch of stuff was going to happen. None of it happened. The sane people in the climate change camp explain that there is incremental change over about the next century. Okay, maybe I believe that. But then when I ask why a slight rise in global temperature averages is actually a negative, I get called names.

I’ll point out that the last time the climate globally rose a couple of degrees we got the Renaissance and they tell me I’m stupid. When I point out that a warmer climate opens new land for productive food growth and living space, they tell my I don’t care about the planet.

When I point out that those natural disasters they keep caterwauling about don’t seem to be coming to pass, they scream at me about California wildfires. When I point out that the environmentalists refuse to allow for proper forest maintenance which is making the fires worse, they tell me I don’t care about the endangered black bellied bullshit beetle of Northern California.

When I point out that California is a disgusting shithole that is covered in needles, trash, and human excrement… well… then they don’t say anything. That might just be me being a jerk. But I’m not wrong.

At any rate, they aren’t going to insult anyone into believing them. At least nobody with half a brain.

Let’s Talk About How Much Better Thing Are Now

I was born at the end of the 1970’s. I remember the 1980’s quite well. Now, I am aware that a lot of the climate change activists out there are a good bit younger than me. Many of them don’t really even remember the 1990’s. Some don’t even remember 9/11 (any you said you’d never forget… sorry, I couldn’t help myself LOL)

Well let me just remind you… environmentally, things used to be a LOT worse. LA was famous for smog. Hiking trails and rivers were filled with trash. Cities were disgusting… like filthy. (In their defense, there are some gross cities now, but that’s because they won’t roust the bums… more on that in a future article.)

Honestly, cars got horrible gas milage and belched black smoke. Coal fired power plants had no scrubbers whatsoever. They just shot black smoke and soot straight into the air. There was a paper mill a couple of towns over from where I lived… and if you drove past it, you literally almost vomited because of the stench. No joke! We used to talk about it.

In my hometown of Roanoke, the river was so disgusting that the idea that a fish even lived in it was suspect and the idea that a person would then eat that fish was full on lunacy.

The air was worse. The water was worse. The technology was dirtier. The people cared less.

Now fast forward to 2021. We reuse our grocery bags. Cars get crazy high gas milage compared to before and their emissions are negligible in comparison. No normal person would ever conceive of littering on the street, much less on a hiking trail. Honestly, to do so would be considered an act of immorality. That’s got to count for something… right?

Nope! Not according to the climate change lobby. It doesn’t count for one tiny bit. To listen to these people talk, we are dirtier than we have ever been before. You get ZERO credit for the return of the American Buffalo. Nothing for the clean air we all enjoy now. Nothing for the pristine rivers and beautiful nature that exists right along side of major metropolitan areas now.

They just demand more. More more more. You are a piece of crap for existing. You use too much and give back too little. You are a cancer on this earth and should feel very very bad about yourself for it.

I can’t imagine why that doesn’t sell better.

The Solution… Like It or Not

Up until now, what I’ve been describing can be attributed to bad politics. Climate change activists have a tendency to over promise and underdeliver. They say the world is going to end and it doesn't. They say a country in West Africa is going to be eaten up by the Sahara Desert and it’s a lush, beautiful place. They scream about being in an “emergency” when it’s plainly obvious to anyone that we aren’t in anything close to an “emergency”.

Having said that, there is a problem. Almost all smart people who look at this kind of thing as part of their job agree that something is happening. They agree that our CO2 emissions as part of our power generation plays a large role in whatever is happening. It needs to be addressed.

There is a solution, too. What if I told you that there was a cheap (per Kw/Hr) way to power huge portions of the world? What if I told you that the only emissions this technology produced was steam? What if I told you that it can be made completely safe? What if I told you that in the history of civilian version of this power generation, there have only been 3 accidents and only one of those lead to any deaths? Obviously, I’m talking about nuclear. Why won’t the activists?

There have been volumes written lately on nuclear. I’m not going to go into all of them here. I’ll link you to an interesting talk on the subject below.

You can agree with Shellenberger or disagree with him. I’m not saying he’s the end all be all on this. But it’s pretty obvious to me, based on everything that I’ve looked into, that safe modern nuclear power should be a giant arrow in our quiver if we are to seriously curb emissions.

But the activists won’t even discuss it. They are too wrapped up in this idea that power should generate zero waste. That it should be 100% renewable. It’s a fantasy and everyone knows it. The current climate activist position on nuclear is the very definition of the perfect being the enemy of the good.

I’m not saying that nuclear is the answer forever, either. But it’s a stop gap. It’s a 100 year solution until some brilliant young man or woman comes up with the next technology. But we refuse to use it.

And the fact that we refuse to use it is evidence that when people tell you we are in a “climate emergency”, they themselves don’t believe it. If they did, they would be pushing for anything and everything that would help. They aren’t. They just like to whine.

I’ve been standing on this mountain top waiting on the return of the lord long enough. It’s past midnight, he ain’t here, and I’m leaving. It’s going to be pretty tough to get be back, too.

Non-Sequitur

For those who made it this far, thank you.

Have you ever noticed that a firetruck driving down the street with lights and sirens looks like a big fat drunk drag queen who isn’t getting enough attention?

Happy Sunday all!

—V