Where's Greta?

Seems like just yesterday you couldn't open a newspaper or a laptop without the obnoxious teen scold Greta Thunberg getting in your face about how your reckless disregard for her climate expertise was destroying the planet. Now, Greta be gone. You can barely find a reference to her on the news anymore, and her glory days of addressing the UN, the US congress, Davos, and sundry parliaments are long over. Is this because the world heeded her wisdom and climate salvation is now assurred? No! In fact, the world at large is going in the opposite direction. Coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels, is setting all-time consumption records. In 2021 over 200 new coal-fired generating plants were under construction worldwide, mostly in Asia. So why the radio silence from the most revered climate activist of all time? Here's my theory. The "Mighty Wurlitzer" of global propaganda only has room for one top story at a time, and Greta's time is up. She has been pushed into the shadows by Vlodomyr Zelensky's heroic war to save freedom, democracy, and the "liberal world order." After all, what's more important; saving the planet, or saving the American Empire?

Honey, we broke the weather!

The thermometer got darn close to 80 today, yet there’s a risk of snow flurries in the days ahead. That’s fucked up! It was so summery today I got my plaid cargo shorts out of the bottom drawer. Ya, it was that warm! In fact, the Farm Manager ridiculed my get-up. Apparently the plaid of the shorts clashed with the horizontal stripes on my shirt… When I enquired whether my outfit made my fat look ass, she rejoindered that I did indeed look like an ass. But you gotta bear in mind this assessment comes from a woman, that half of the species whose favorite shoes are always the ones that hurt their feet the most. But back to the weather. It does look a little f’d up, doesn’t it? How do you go from balmy to arctic in 24 hours? It’s gotta be this global warming thing they’ve been warning us about for fifty years. For fifty years we didn’t believe them. Now it’s here.

How much fear can you take before your brain explodes?

As you've probably noticed, it's been one catastrophe after another out there in that big old world, at least according to the merchants of fear. Let's take a deep dive into the pit of doom and suss out just how screwed we really are. The major calamities, in no particular order:

• Covid. Unlike what some science-denying politicians have been telling you, covid was never over. In fact, it's back, and bigger than ever! Guess we should have listened to that expert on CBC who's been warning us the vax rate for five-year-olds wasn't nearly high enough! For God's sake, kids, put those masks back on before you kill Granny! 
• Disinformation. It's everywhere! Putin's troll armies are spreading the stuff faster than British Intelligence and the CIA can set the record straight. Lucky for us, Big Tech experts are on the job sealing the last leaks in the protective berm designed to keep you safe. Now that Chris Hedges is erased from YouTube, we're almost there.
• Democracy. It was the French sociologist Michel Crozier who first isolated the crisis of democracy in '75 or so, proving for the first time that sociologists could add anything to the storehouse of human knowledge. Mark Twain actually foreshadowed many of his findings 100 years before, but he wasn't a sociologist. 
• Dictatorship. We who are fortunate enough to live in the free world are constantly threatened by dictators. We are led by the greatest democracy of all time, which also has the greatest military of all time, so it is inevitable that we will prevail. I wouldn't worry about this calamity too much.
• Ukraine. This timely crisis encapsulates several of the previous calamities. Contrary to Putin's disinformation, the real reason he attacked his peaceful democratic neighbour was because it was a peaceful democratic neighbour. The longer Russians saw all that peaceful prosperity going on next door, the more they hated Putin. He attacked to save his regime!
• Energy. The agents of disinfo want to scare you into thinking there's an energy crisis. Rubbish! The German people are fully prepared to put on sweaters once Putin turns their heating gas off. A small price to pay to stand with free and democratic Ukraine!
• Financial. The Gloomy Gustovs and the Nervous Nellies would have you believe all of the above will lead to a financial crisis. Impossible! The United States Dollar is the most beloved currency in the world, and the US can legally print as many as they need. It is technically impossible to ever have a financial crisis in the US!
• Climate. Last but not least, let's consider the supposed "climate crisis." Like all these other calamities, this one too is highly exaggerated. Hate to break the news, but Greta Looney Tunesberg didn't even finish high school, never mind becoming a scientist, so why should we listen to her? Besides, by the time the worst comes to pass, Elon Musk's space colonies should ready for move-in!

So relax! Nothing to fear but fear itself! We lucky folks in the free and democratic world got nothing but sunny days ahead!

No, we don't have 12 years; the climate crisis is NOW!

At least in New Delhi.

Not so much around here. All that scary shit you read about songbirds going extinct and frogs going extinct... they're not going extinct at all, they're just moving to the Bruce. We're overrun with them. It's hard to get a decent night's sleep for all the croaking and chirping.

As for the big picture, (and even the pot-addled hillbilly is forced to acknowledge that the world is bigger than the Bruce Peninsula) I wouldn't worry about it too much. Leonardo DiCaprio is on top of this stuff. His movies have grossed more than seven billions, so he obviously knows what he's talking about. He's teaming up with Greta to make it all better. (Aspiring rappers take note; there's a rhyme in there...)



So rest easy folks. It's all under control.

Blame the climate crisis

The other day me and the Farm Manager took a tour up to Lion's Head, an exquisitely pretty town half-way up the Bruce. We come this way often, and it's always been on the back burner, at the back of what's left of my mind, that this would make a sweet retirement destination.

Mind you, the locals might take a dim view of a neighbour who has four or five parts vehicles decorating his property and likes to pee off the porch.

We were out by the marina and we both remarked on how much beach debris, including random driftwood and lots of those softly rounded (by millions of years of wave action) white rocks that make up the shoreline, had been thrown onto the marina parking lot.

They'd obviously been walloped by a fairly nasty nor'easter.

While we're on our walkabout, I hear, "hey, is that place still for sale?"

The FM was pointing to a place across the harbour that we'd noticed when we were in Lion's Head last summer. A little waterfront cottage perched on the edge of the cliff. It was on offer in the low four hundreds, which seemed like a bargain. We figured it would be snapped up in days.

But here we are a few months later, and the place is still for sale! We decided to go for a closer look.

There was nobody around. The view is spectacular and the house is cute beyond belief, all cobblestone and hardwood. But...

Those nor'easters have been beating the hell out of the waterfront. The last storm took the shoreline within thirty feet of the house. Another nasty storm or two, and your wee cottage on Georgian Bay is gonna be in Georgian Bay.

Thing is, the shorelines of his neighbours don't seem to be impacted. That's because the neighbour to the east had a sturdy stone and concrete seawall, and the neighbour to the west had a very robust steel seawall. Unfortunately for them, the erosion will now wash away their properties behind their seawalls when future storms hit, as they inevitably will.

Once that damage is done, the cottages further down the waterfront will be at risk.

Somebody needs to take action here, and soon!


My question; is this the result of the climate crisis, or is this the consequence of multiple poor decisions made by property owners?