UPDATED: The Crux Of The Problem

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

- Mark Twain (possibly)

The above quotation, often attributed to Mark Twain, seems more relevant than ever, especially if we substitute climate change for weather.

The ever-increasing toll exacted by 'weather events' that are only growing in intensity is impossible to ignore, as is the warning that we have only about 11 years left before the changes become irreversible. Despite that doomsday scenario, people are, to say the least, ambivalent about paying the cost necessary to avert total disaster. A survey commissioned by CBC News in which 4,500 Canadians were interviewed

found that while nearly two-thirds of Canadians see fighting climate change as a top priority, half of those surveyed would not shell out more than $100 per year in taxes to prevent climate change, the equivalent of less than $9 a month.

... 38 per cent of respondents said that "our survival depends on addressing" climate change and 25 per cent said it is a top priority. Another 20 per cent said "it's important, but not a top priority," while 11 per cent said it wasn't a priority.

The good news is that many Canadians are willing to take some measures to combat climate change, as long as they are not too painful:

The most popular options were buying local (75 per cent) and reducing the thermostat (66 per cent), while 55 per cent said they were willing to purchase fewer things in general. Just under half, or 47 per cent, said they would be willing to drive less, while 37 per cent would take public transit or use a bicycle more often.

The bad news is that people are less enthused about measures that require more 'heavy lifting.'

Just 34 per cent said they would go without air conditioning, 30 per cent would purchase a vehicle with an energy-saving mode and 25 per cent would fly less frequently. Fewer than one in five respondents who were willing to make changes to their lives said they would purchase an electric car (20 per cent), move to a smaller house or apartment (19 per cent) or give up eating meat (17 per cent).

Respondents were asked how much they would be willing to pay to combat climate change,

Nearly one-third, or 32 per cent, said they were unwilling to pay anything at all, while 17 per cent said they would be willing to pay less than $100 in taxes every year. Netflix's most basic plan comes in at a yearly price tag of $120.

Another 16 per cent of respondents were willing to pay between $100 and $500 per year — the equivalent of between $8.33 and $41.67 per month. Just seven per cent were willing to pay between $500 and $1,000 per year, while only three per cent would pay more than $1,000 per year in taxes to help prevent climate change.

First-time voters were a notable exception. They were half as likely as the general population to want to pay nothing and markedly more willing to pay extra taxes.

I have said it before: people are their own worst enemies. Coupled with a craven political class all to happy to exploit the electorate, it is surely a recipe for disaster that will grow even greater as the years unfold.

UPDATE: For those climate-change scofflaws who believe we still have time to debate mitigation, a little something for your consideration:

Permafrost at outposts in the Canadian Arctic is thawing 70 years earlier than predicted, an expedition has discovered, in the latest sign that the global climate crisis is accelerating even faster than scientists had feared.

A team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks said they were astounded by how quickly a succession of unusually hot summers had destabilised the upper layers of giant subterranean ice blocks that had been frozen solid for millennia.

“What we saw was amazing,” Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor of geophysics at the university, told Reuters. “It’s an indication that the climate is now warmer than at any time in the last 5,000 or more years.“

More From The Land Of Nod

Warning: The following contains hateful messaging from the land of the free and home of the brave:

Reminder to All “Straight” Men Who Selflessly Devote Their Lives to Thinking About Gay Men Having Sex:

Remember to turn our app off in church. Our servers can't handle that much traffic.

Thanking you in advance,

Grindr Tech Support pic.twitter.com/QpEe75yPUQ

— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) June 15, 2019

UPDATED: Meanwhile, In The Land Of The Free And The Home Of the Brave

An Entire Black Family Nearly Excuted By #Police Because A 4 Year Old Kid Walked Out Of A store With A Barbie Doll Without The Family Noticing It.
#TheNewNormal4Blacks Use This Hashtag & Stand In Solidarity
.#PoliceBrutality #Policeterrorism #BlackLivesMatter #justiceorelse pic.twitter.com/NT2HRcjtE6

— Black 24/7 (@Blackmediagrp) June 14, 2019

You can read details of this sordid incident here as well as here.

UPDATE: Here is the story from the perspective of the victimized Black family:

"A police officer, we don't know who he is, a guy, random guy came up to the door banging on the window with a gun, says he's going to shoot us in our face, telling us to get out of the car. He hasn't alerted us that we're being pulled over anything," Ames said.

"If you look at the video pretty good I'm snatched out the car and I fly back and that's when he grabs me out the car.

My hands were up the whole time," Ames said. "It was just a very scary situation I never thought I'd be in. Traumatizing for me and my daughters," said Aesha Harper, the girls' mother.

UPDATED: An Emotional Plea From John Stewart

For a number of reasons, I don't feel much like writing these days. Instead, I will let the stories I link to speak for themselves. If you start at the 1:25 mark of the following, you will see one that amply illustrates the great gulf that separates governments from the people they purport to serve.



UPDATE: If you want a Canadian version of government contempt, click here.

For Your Consideration

We need undeveloped, pristine land now more than ever to help offset rapidly escalating climate change. Please consider signing this petition.

Shifting Patterns

We now can say what we couldn’t say four years ago: a vote for Green isn’t automatically a wasted vote. If you vote with your heart and you vote Green, you might actually get a Green and so that shows a momentum shift, with greater credibility than there was four years ago.

- Shachi Kurl, executive director of the Angus Reid Institute

Being a tribalistic species, probably one of our biggest challenges is to rise above our natural affiliations, be they cultural, sociological, religious, political or ideological. We tend to identify strongly with our own kind; if we are Liberals, we look upon the Conservatives and NDP with suspicion; if we are Catholic, the road to salvation lies in that dogma, all others regarded as not-quite-legitimate. But now, facing the greatest crisis the earth has ever seen, can we override the many things that separate us in order to work for the common good and the salvation of humanity?

That is the hope of Elizabeth May and her Green Party. Mitch Potter writes:

A polling surge shows upwards of 10 per cent support nationwide and, perhaps more importantly, surveys suggest a substantially higher portion of Canada’s restless electorate — dispirited by hyperpartisanship in Ottawa as the global climate crisis becomes undeniable reality — are, for the first time ever, open to voting Green. If not for themselves, for their kids.

One recalls that in the last federal election, Justin Trudeau's appeal was to young voters, who responded enthusiastically to his message of hope. Now that his patina is tarnished, an opportunity for electoral gains has opened for the Greens:

What the Greens see now is an unprecedented number of Canadian millennials, as they arrive as the most potentially powerful voting cohort, demanding aggressive climate action now — something on the scale of the Green New Deal proposed south of the border by Democratic rising star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

With the unprecedented gains made by the Green Party in the European parliamentary elections, Elizabeth May is hopeful of a critical mass of seats in Ottawa. And her message should resonate with those voters massively disaffected by the partisanship that cripples politics today:

May’s party laid its bold ambitions bare last month, unveiling “Mission Possible” — an all-hands-on-deck approach that would strip divisive politics from the climate crisis, empowering an inner cabinet of all parties to guide the country through stringent new emissions targets, including net-zero by 2050.

Canada’s Greens say their plan echoes the war cabinets of Mackenzie King and Winston Churchill, when the need for victory transcended partisanship. Such all-party collaboration is appropriate and necessary, May argues, in the face of a threat greater than any war Canada has known.

And there are signs of a significant shift in public perceptions:

In the Greens’ favour, polling suggests that four months out, the party has a degree of momentum that presently eludes its rivals. One Abacus Data snapshot last weekend showed May and her party eclipsing the NDP in many parts of the country, suggesting a “rapid ascent of the Green party in both vote intent and, more importantly, vote consideration.”

Will Canadians do what is necessary to ensure the election of a sufficient number of Greens to have an impact in Ottawa? There is no crystal ball that can offer us a glimpse of the electoral future, but the increasingly ominous and destructive path of climate change demonstrates a horrifying future that we would be supremely foolish not to avoid with all of the means at our disposal.

Man Overboard!

H/t Michael de Adder

Sometimes, it is best to let nature take its course.