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I have a morning regimen. A pretty strict morning regimen actually. Like, OCD strict, truth be told. My wakeup time can vary. I'm retired, so an alarm clock is rarely a part of the routine anymore. I push the dog off of my covers and onto "her side" of the bed. (As if!) I drag myself up, and set my feet on the floor. Short pause to confirm my balance. A trip to the bathroom, brush teeth, hop on the scale, shave, and floss. Always in that order. Don't ask. I dress, make the bed, open the bedroom blinds, and walk to the back of the apartment while reciting to the dog in very excited tones, "Let's go let some light in! Let's go let some light in!" Inevitably, the dog gets there before me, and then, without fail, stops to scratch an itch somewhere. Not just sometimes. EVERY TIME. Is OCD contagious, or are owner and animal just particularly well suited for one another in our case? I open the vertical blinds to illuminate the room while she impatiently pokes her nose between the slats to ensure that she is the first of us to get a look outside.
Now it's time for our morning walk, but in the winter, I've got to check my phone first to see how many layers I need to put on to protect myself from the cold. The dog has never shown any concern for temperature. She doesn't do layers. I've yet to encounter any outdoor conditions that could dampen her enthusiasm to get through that door first thing in the morning.
But something happened this morning. Something that, just for a moment, upset the routine. It wasn't anything earth shattering. Let's just say it was one of those "makes you say hmm" moments. Like the first time my bathroom scale read 180 after decades registering in the random 170's. The world didn't end, but then, as was the case this morning, it was obvious that the time had come for some reflection.
The temperature this morning? Nine degrees! Nine degrees Fahrenheit! Single digit temperatures had arrived in Dover Delaware. I was shocked. The shock didn't last long. After all, the previous few mornings we'd been in the middle teens, so how extraordinary was nine degrees really? Extraordinary enough to grab my attention, I guess. We may have experienced single digit temperatures in Dover before, but I don't remember it. In fact, I can't remember EVER experiencing single digits, and I spent four years in South Dakota. Don't get me wrong. I almost certainly HAVE experienced temperatures that extreme in the past. I simply don't remember it. That's why it became such an "occasion" when I saw the readout on my phone this morning. "Hmm. I've got to give this some thought", it occurred to me.
Once on the walk, it struck me that nine degrees didn't really feel all that terrible. Certainly no worse than the mid teens the morning prior. That's what layers can do for you I guess. I also started to reflect on the paradox of a nine degree morning in a world obsessed with climate change. "Hah!" I mused, "No evidence of global warming this morning!" Of course, the alarmists don't call it global warming anymore, do they? And mornings like this one are the reason why. Global warming morphed into climate change expressly to enable them to create a frenzy over not just the normal warm weather events, but the normal cold weather events as well. Hurricanes, heat waves, droughts? Climate change. Icy mornings, record low temperatures, polar vortices? Also climate change. See how that works?
And of course, there is the whole weather vs climate business to consider. The left's insistence on equating the two is their most egregious slight of hand by far. I frequently reflect on the fact that the climate alarmists pretend to have no appreciation for the difference between the two. Weather is a totally different thing from climate. Weather is a series of day to day events, and can exhibit a tremendous amount of daily/weekly/monthly variability. Climate, on the other hand, is a much more "big picture" phenomenon. Climatic considerations are measured in centuries. If only the radical climate folks would acknowledge that. But then, it is not in their interest to be so meticulous in their analysis, is it? Every time there's a hurricane or a drought, or more recently, a wildfire, they spin up the climate change nonsense as if we never had those phenomena prior to the evolution of our carbon reliant world.
Reflecting on all this was beginning to spoil my mood. I could have been just enjoying a brisk walk in the chilled air with my eager canine companion, but instead I was dwelling on the deceptions of the Climate Industrial Complex. Bummer! That's when I had an idea. More like an epiphany really. If the climate grifters can blame every ordinary weather related extreme on anthropomorphic climate change and lay the blame at the feet of CO2, our growing use of fossil fuels and the greenhouse effect, why couldn't we turn the tables on them and blame all these same phenomena, or at least the cold weather ones, on their reckless and crazy efforts to lower CO2 emissions. Nine degrees is COLD. It's TOO cold. It would be better if it were warmer. Why isn't it warmer? It's obvious. We don't have enough CO2 in the atmosphere. And just like that, I became a believer in anthropomorphic climate change. These morons have depleted all of the valuable CO2 that we need to prosper on this hostile earth. Those grifters have ushered in a cold and barren world with their radical and reckless pursuit of Net Zero. We never had nine degree temperatures in Dover before those crazies started monkeying with our critical CO2 levels. Everything was just fine until we started to lose the benefits of the greenhouse effect thanks to their meddling. We don't need to reduce CO2. We need to INCREASE CO2. The fate of the world depends on it. CO2 isn't a threat to mankind. It's our salvation. Crazy talk, I know, but no crazier than the ridiculous arguments we've had to endure from those environmental Nazis over the past half century.
And just like that, I became a believer in anthropomorphic climate change.
We need to start a new climate movement predicated on the desperate need to increase the world's CO2 concentrations and get those temperatures back up to where they belong. And we need to seek out and bring to justice those who are responsible for this hellish arctic nightmare of dropping temperatures. We need to decommission all of our solar generating capacity and offshore wind farms, and of course, all that rooftop solar will have to go. We need to replace it all with as many carbon spewing fossil fuel power generating stations as we can possibly build as fast as we can build them. We need to drill baby drill, and it goes without saying that we should flare as much natural gas as we possibly can in the process. The climate change grifters won't like any of this, but it's got to be done to "save the planet" from a rapidly approaching year round global winter. We need to act now or the entire planet will be a frozen wasteland by September 24, 2029. And yes, I just pulled that date right out of my ass. That's how climate alarmism works, right? And speaking of global winter, nuclear has got to go. I used to be a big fan of nuclear back when carbon was the enemy, but the greens never liked it then, even when it sounded like the perfect solution for a carbon free world. Well, now maybe they'll be happy with a new nuclear free environment. That will be their consolation prize for embracing their new pro-carbon future. No more "You will own nothing and you will be happy." From now on, it will be "You'll have cheap abundant carbon based energy, longer summers, a comfortably heated home, and prosperity; and you will be happy."
Oil company CEO's will no longer be worldwide pariahs. Their vacated positions as outcasts will be filled by the leaders of Extinction Rebellion, Friends of the Earth, The Sierra Club and Greenpeace. And Greta Thunberg of course.
And what is it with Greta Thunberg, anyhow? How in the world did that whiny little nincompoop ever become the face of global climate concerns? You'd expect that a movement with that much hubris and sense of self importance would have chosen someone with a little more in the way of scientific bona fides and gravitas. Kind of like choosing the Easter Bunny to be the face of Easter. As a friend recently pointed out to me, Easter is arguably the most significant holiday on the Christian calendar; more important than Christmas. For Christians, it represents the resurrection of the Son of God from death on the cross to new and everlasting life. It offers all of mankind the promise of a similar resurrection to eternal life in heaven in exchange for the simple act of believing. And as the forward facing symbol of that epic promise, Christianity chose the Easter Bunny? The Easter Bunny! That adult sized incarnation of every kid's little fluffy friend who walks around department stores and pricey restaurant Easter brunches scaring the crap out of small children despite the offer of free candy.
Greta Thunberg is the Easter Bunny of the Environmental Movement.
And what do we really know about Greta anyhow? She's supposed to be some innocent teenager, but hasn't she been around for like 20 or 30 years already? She could be peri-menopausal by now for all we know. On hormone replacement and getting ready for her second artificial hip. And yet, they keep her onboard as a sort of mascot for the sake of branding, I guess. Hell, Elsie the Cow was created in 1936. That's 89 years ago, and Elsie's still going strong. I guess Greta's got a few more good years left in her. She's got a pretty sweet grift going on for herself there too. I'm sure she won't want to give it up until she absolutely has to. She's probably a bazillionaire by now. Does anybody even know where she lives these days? I wonder how many houses she owns. With that and all the traveling she does, she must have a carbon footprint bigger than a dozen Versailles.
Greta Thunberg is the Elsie the Cow of the Environmental Movement.
With the tables turned on the radical environmentalists, maybe we could encourage our youth to become a brand new cadre of annoying, know-it-all protest harpies. They could annoy the old guard environmentalists by throwing paint or soup on their beloved works of art or by gluing their hands to the road to block traffic along their busiest highways. But then, who would really care? How does one further defile "artworks" like Piss Christ? And the roads outside of hippie communes are mostly dirt and gravel and not heavily traveled anyway. How would that work exactly?
What I'd really like to see would be for Greta and her ilk be called before the International Criminal Court in the Hague to answer for their decades long environmental con game. Oh the irony! A herd of phony baloney environmental grifters called before the world's premier phony baloney court of "justice" to answer for their sins. I'd pay money to witness that, and I'd bring my own popcorn.
Alright. Enough of this. I started out simply noticing that it's a bit cold outside, and I ended up reflecting on Greta Thunberg, the Easter Bunny, and the total fantasy of modern day justice in the Hague. Gotta go. My dog is pestering me to go back outside. It's up to 22 degrees. Practically toasty. Shorts weather. Hmm. You know all that stuff I wrote?
Never mind!
