Closer Than We Think

It is probably to state the obvious that, being a tribal and insular species, we tend to be less moved by disasters when they occur far from our shores. But counting on catastrophe to stay away from our immediate environs is becoming an increasingly difficult assumption. As the following report from NBC's Al Roker makes clear, geographic and economic disruption is closer than we care to think:

Climate in Crisis

If you really want a detailed assessment of anything, print is always your best source. For example, today's Star details the horrendous changes taking place in the Arctic thanks to the record-breaking temperatures occurring there.

If, however, you want a quick overview of what is happening in the North, take a look at the following report by NBC's Lester Holt:



Finally, if you have the heart for it, read how our existential crisis is playing a role in helping people decide whether they want to bring children into this world.

The Media Awaken

To put it concisely, owing to a sense of general disillusionment, I have been taking a break from my blog, a break that is likely to continue with some exceptions, as in the following.

A large number of news outlets have banded together under the name Covering Climate Now, their mission, to provide better reporting on the climate crisis. While I fear that this collaboration will only turn out to be a substitute for, rather than a spur to, action on the crisis, I plan to link to stories that suggest Americans are becoming increasingly aware of the dangers posed by it. And let's face it; unless the U.S. and other populous nations take this seriously, nothing substantive can happen to mitigate the disaster we are now witnessing on an almost daily basis.

The first story comes from NBC Nightly News:

UPDATED: Uh, Uh. Trudeau Enthusiasts Won't Like This

Start at the 1:40 mark to see what I mean. To whet your appetite, here are some viewer comments:

What an awesome way to drop that Saudi Arabia thing. Hasan's show just keeps getting better and better.

The look on his face after that question! He thought they were gonna joke about his cool socks!

Canada selling weapons of mass death to Saudi Arabia is them just following Americans lead.

Trudeau is the Canadian Obama. They both campaigned as progressives but as soon as they got in they turned into conservative establishment centrists who cater to the status quo and big oil.

This has got to be the worst condemnation of msm journalists today, they got upstaged by a comedian.




UPDATE: The Star's Venay Menon offers his take on the interview:

When I was a kid, this one time we were driving through Pennsylvania late at night when a fawn suddenly appeared in the headlights of our station wagon. Since my father maddeningly drove under the speed limit — and there was no traffic on the interstate — he was able to brake without incident. But that adorable creature just stood there for a good 30 seconds, motionless, unsure of what to do next.

It seemed so helpless and lost in the chaos.

I was reminded of it while watching Netflix’s Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj on Sunday. Trudeau might as well buy himself a pair of antlers and a bushy tail before Halloween. Just based on the moments of awkward silence and the reaction shots in which he looked absolutely paralyzed with fear, he was that fawn.

What Trudeau’s inner circle probably didn’t realize when it thought this interview — and global exposure via Netflix — was a great idea was that much of the really damning material would come from taped segments. In between clips of Minhaj’s sit-down with Trudeau, the comedian also blitzed his in-studio audience with facts, observations and timelines that portrayed Trudeau as a scandal-ridden leader who speaks out of both sides of his mouth. The show went after Trudeau over the SNC-Lavalin scandal. It raised the issue of ethics violations. It more or less called Trudeau a fraud on the environment. It condemned him over Canada’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Venon concludes that regarding the Trudeau cachet, the bloom is off the rose. I agree wholeheartedly.

UPDATED: A Call For Resistance

Here in Ontario Premier Doug Ford, not content to have a taxpayer-funded propaganda channel, has mandated that all gas stations must display stickers advancing the government's attack on carbon-pricing. No doubt a constitutional issue, this compelled political speech is not going down well with everyone.

May we all take inspiration from the following:

.@CHCHTV @CHCHNews provincially mandated Federal Carbon Tax info-sticker are popping up at gas stations everywhere starting today. #hamont pic.twitter.com/sPdwuiVfJ6

— Phil Perkins (@PhilPerkinsCHCH) August 30, 2019

UPDATE: Here is someone else's strategy.

The Koch Legacy

Following the death last week of David Koch, media coverage, I found, left much to be desired. MSNBC filled its two-minute report with fulsome praise of the man's philanthropy, with nary a word about his rapacious, insatiablee evil, massive climate-change denial funding being one of his most detestable and diabolical projects. Ditto for Global National.

Happily, the redoubtable Guardian showed no such timidity in assessing Koch's legacy:

Koch Industries, a private company, is the United States’ 17th-largest producer of greenhouse gases and the 13th-biggest water polluter, according to research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst – ahead of oil giants Exxon Mobil, Occidental Petroleum and Phillips 66. The conglomerate has committed hundreds of environmental, workplace safety, labor and other violations. It allegedly stole oil from Indian reservations, won business in foreign countries with bribery, and one of its crumbling butane pipelines killed two teenagers, resulting in a nearly $300m wrongful death settlement. The dangerous methane leakage, carbon emissions, chemical spills and other environmental injustices enacted by Koch’s companies have imperiled the planet and allegedly brought cancer to many people.

Koch's separation from the rest of humanity was profound. Evil oligarch that he was, he cared not a whit for the travails of others, having never experienced them himself, all the while calling himself a self-made man, despite the fact that he and his brother inherited the family business.

From the perspective of many, however, his and brother Charles' greatest evil revolved around climate change:

Not only did Koch help unleash countless metric tons of greenhouse gases from the earth, he was a key funder of climate change denialism, stiff-arming scientists in order to further plunder the earth he was destroying. Revelations in Christopher Leonard’s new book, Kochland, show that Koch played an even greater role in funding climate change denialism than we previously knew. As we careen towards a climate catastrophe that seems more and more likely to happen within the next 11 years, we can rightly pin a portion of the blame on David and his brother.

In the play Julius Caesar, Marc Antony says: The evil that men do lives after them;/The good is oft interred with their bones. In the case of David Koch, that is both meet and just. As the Guardian concludes,

Death and destruction. That is David Koch’s legacy.

Given The World's Dire State

... it's time for a bit of a laugh. Enjoy.