Winter struggling to get traction... Blame Climate Crisis!

One of the favorite rituals of abuse visited on school children back in the day was the mandatory "public speech." That was where you had to make a speech in front of the class. The vast majority of students dreaded the prospect. Some would break down in tears half way through their speech. One poor kid wet himself right there at the front of everybody. I first had to make a speech in 4th grade, at Ponsonby Public School. My topic was Alan Shepard, the first US astronaut in space. It was supposed to last four minutes. I held up OK; wobbly knees, but no tearful breakdowns and no pants-wetting. Whew! Some of the kids were not at all phased. Janet Mitchell, who I had a bit of a crush on, blew the class away with her masterful speech about Rachel Carson's best-seller, Silent Spring. Seems we were doing great harm to the planet and if we didn't mend our wayward ways, we were doomed! That was sixty years ago. Since then, we've never mended our ways, we do greater harm to the planet every year, and we're ever more doomed by the day. And yet... life seems to go on. Sea levels have been rising so fast that numerous vulnerable states that were predicted to be underwater 20 years ago are with us still. I went to the east coast last summer for the first time in 30 years, and the sea level was pretty much where I remember it. Our government is handing out billions in subsidies to foreign companies promising to build batteries for the EV market. With what? Yes, Canada has a lot of high value minerals... in the ground! How's that "Ring of Fire" development going? The only way all our subsidized battery factories are going to build batteries is if we buy the ingredients from... China? In spite of a sixty years+ campaign to scare the world off carbon fuels, 2023 marks the all-time record consumption of them. Yup, we're burning more coal and oil than ever! India and China are leading the war on the climate; they lead the world in greenhouse gas emissions, by far. But here's the thing; India and China educate more scientists and engineers than the rest of the world combined. Is it really plausible that none of their engineers and scientists are smart enough to see the urgency of our climate crisis? Or is it more plausible that they're a couple of steps ahead of Western engineers and scientists, and realize one or two degrees in average global temperature is no big whoop one way or the other? As for me, I'm just happy I'm gonna make it into December whithout once lifting a snow shovel!