Polls are, basically, trying to put human tendencies in a bite-sized nutshell……which, of course, suggests that we are all basically just nuts. So, the description is apt. Canadians and the pathetic individuals who lead us have just proven that definition to the level of obvious and pending tragedy – thus the title of this blog.
It seems that the latest polls commissioned by the latest iteration of ‘parties’ has revealed that Canadians are overwhelmingly concerned about the environment and the climate and all things plague, pestilence and fire. Nothing like your street being reduced to cinders or your family members dying in hospital to focus the mind. Good on them. Finally, they seem to understand what is truly important….kinda, maybe……
The same polls show that that concern is not their number one issue! The number one issue amongst Canadians according to Gallup, despite living in their RV’s and being on evacuation alert or hooked up to a ventilator, is the cost of living. Yeah, you read that right.…Canadians are still more concerned with their wallets than they are about actually breathing.
Our s**t-for-brains leaders, therefore, have designed their most recent campaign around housing costs, energy costs, business stimulation, employment and food costs. Only the Bloc and the Greens even mentioned the environment. When we die en masse, we, hopefully, can drink wine and maybe pay off the mortgage as we lie there gasping and unable to move.
“Dave! Aren’t you being just a bit dramatic?”
Yeah. I guess so. We all believe: “It can’t happen here. I mean, we live in the first world, don’t we! This isn’t Haiti!* Doesn’t that make us exempt from climate change, forest fires, plague and growing madness? I mean, aren’t we privileged”? (*Siberia has more forest fires raging out of control than all the rest of the world combined – jus’ sayin’)
A regular reader in Kamloops does not think he is exempt. Or privileged. Because he is not. He’s in his RV watching a looming forest fire. The natural flora and fauna around us do not seem exempt (we just contained another forest fire but a few miles away). Our fire-fighting community didn’t feel exempted (because they were not) and, didn’t we all just kinda ‘lose a year’ due to a pandemic?
The pandemic is getting worse (Delta variant. And coming soon to a community near you will be the inevitable blockbuster Omega variant). And yet our decision-makers are opening up the schools and restaurants and pubs! We are like Lemmings being led by Loons!
Trudeau is flying around the country in a large Canadian airliner designated for our privileged elite and has emblazoned the fuselage with his name writ large (like Trump but with more letters). He acts as if the plane is his, not the Canadian taxpayers’. As our climate burns, Trudeau jets and campaigns in an unnecessary effort to achieve a majority government. I am voting Jagmeet* for no other reason than to keep a minority government. I mean, seriously, do I want my life held in the hands of one single imbecile or one managed by a group of them? Gawd! What a choice!
*Annamie Paul (Greens) has no influence and neither do the juvenile, petty-focused Greens. Their sole purpose was the environment and they failed to move us one bit. I do not hate them but they could not get the job done.
And, in case you are confused, I will state it even more clearly: our planet is changing and our lives and the lives of our children are in danger – if not this year, then next. If not next, then soon. The cost of living issues are irrelevant at this time. Breathing without smoke, plague and pestilence is the priority.
What the hell is wrong with those people??? And….what the hell is wrong with us?????
Our Off the Grid Home 
The insipid voters electing idiots that promise them Billions of dollars in tax payer “give aways”…..
Bribing us with our own money.
A race to the fiscal bottom.
We deserve what we get.
Unfortunately the leadership choices we have ….explains a great deal.
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You can tell from the blog content that I agree with you and JA (he liked). And you can tell also that I am ranting because I, alone, cannot make the necessary difference but yelling louder seems the best I can do. This is a global problem requiring a global effort and it is not only NOT being done, it is still not even our first priority!. The thing that boggles my mind is that, except for little Greta Thunberg, no one in power is stepping up in any kind of meaningful way. It may be too early to kiss your butt goodbye, but you’d better start getting flexible and practice puckering up. It’s looking more and more inevitable.
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There are voices going up in Europe (behind the scenes) to postpone the european “green deal” as it would ramp up even more prices of electricity and explode the investments needed to make this Green Deal happen (and thus close all nuclear power plants and build gass fired centrales – as if these will not generate CO2). Prices of electricity have doubled, gas prices tripled over the last 6 months. This has catapulted a LOT of people into “energy poverty”….people simply can no longer pay their energy bills….with winter coming, a lot of people will have cold. The governments are afraid that there will be massive protest when people will be cold, no longer able to pay for their heating and gasoline to drive their cars (and therefore lose mobility). Prices of electrical cars are high, prices for electricity have doubled, there is simply NOT enough electricity available to power all these cars, we want to shut down ALL nuclear power plants in 2025, which will create huge blackouts….and so on
So YES, we need to address climate change like yesterday, but who will pay for it? Yes, right, you and me, but even “we” will not be able to pay for this, there are simply not enough means to make this transition as fast as needed. And we suffer now from wrong decisions in the last decades, and a HUGE lack of long term vision from our politicians.
I have no solution myself, just try to do things “right”, save energy where I can, try to live in harmony with nature and minimise my foorprint. Will it be enough? I’m sure it will not be enough….and I am afraid for my children and grandchildren. They will have to live in a totally different and more difficult world
TEOTWAWKI is coming (as you have said many times before)….I am an optimist by nature, but it is difficult to keep being optimistic
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I see a ‘crunch’ coming, too. Bigger even than I have been seeing for decades. Something in the air suggests it might be worse than I imagined. What could that be…? The first fear I have is the collapse of world trade and that is not because I give a damn about investment or business. I care because no country stands alone anymore. Every single one (I believe) relies on other countries for some critical basics. Maybe Russia or some backward, primitive countries can stand alone (at a poverty level we aren’t used to) but the sophisticated First World will feel the greatest change and, as you say, the populace will not be calm about it. If Delta mutates to Omega, that is a really bad sign that we are slipping faster.
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Nicholas Stern did a study on the costs of climate change for the British government in 2006, and some work in Australia too, I think. Australian economist, Ross Garnaut, also did a big study in 2008 for the Australian government on the economic costs. Both found that the longer it took to take action and reduce emission, the greater the economic costs. There have been many more studies since. The costs of “living” will keep growing on the back of these climate disasters. The people who can least afford it will bear those costs disproportionately. I imagine they will object, violently, especially if the costs of transitioning to net zero are blamed. Many studies have predicted a 3 degree increase in global temps will lead to ecological and societal collapse. I hold no hope. Global emissions are still growing, not reducing. I guess the privileged can set themselves up in gated bio-domes in parts of the world (or on Mars) that will be least affected, and have their private armies to fight off the masses (Mars?). Yep, sounds like some dystopian future world.
The road to TEOTWAWKI will not be a smooth one. Prepping or going off grid will be no protection. Maybe a little in the early years, like now, but beyond that, nup. I still reckon you are not high enough, Dave.
Aren’t elections grand?
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Well, I usually refer to myself as maybe not being FAR enough away rather than not HIGH enough but you might be on to something…..I am pretty sure many people will resort to that way of dealing with TEOTWAWKI. In a way, we have already made some little-teotwawki changes (insignificant but definitely different). For instance; hardly anyone goes to town without doing something for others while there. We employ shared boat rides to ease the gas burden. We do ‘community work’ that is real physical work and not just meetings. We rarely use money, just trade and goodwill. Everyone grows stuff. We can all heal and repair at first aid attendant level and are not limited by bureaucratic rules and regs (I think I can take out your appendix, for instance). We have all moved to LESS dependence and employed utility and practicality and problem solving before hired help and reliance on institutions. And, of course, we encourage and practice independence-as-a-community (kind of oxymoronic, I guess). But it is not enough. On a scale of 1 to ten on the survival scale, we might be a 2 compared to urban zeros. Level two ain’t enough. We have to get to five to even have a chance I think. “Why are we only at two?” Because a community garden without water doesn’t work. Because we are not rowing our boats from A to B, we are using outboards. Because even group food deliveries are primarily convenience and will collapse if the SYSTEM breaks down. We live much better this way but we wouldn’t last but an extra year over a condo dweller.
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If temperature rises 3 degrees, it is generally agreed that we have passed the point of no return. Huge amounts of methane trapped in the permafrost will be released in the athmosphere, causing a domino effect that we will not be able to stop. It is happening already as we speak
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Yeah, I know. Even tho we may be able to curb our own personal/human/industrial emissions to desired levels, the planet may not be able to. It is no longer just us driving up greenhouse gasses. The burnt forests aren’t making oxygen for us anymore and now the permafrost is working against us. Once the permafrost releases, the methane just keeps coming. The only possible answer (and it sounds insane) is to to find a tech-fix whereby C02 and methane get vacuumed up or neutralized somehow. I think our ‘grass-roots’ (the people finding their come-to-Jesus opportunity) has passed even if everyone got onside and stopped all fossil fuel burning tomorrow (fat chance of that!). It feels like the planet has downed-tools, stopped working and is no longer striving to fix our errors. Am I being nihilistic? Yeah….and, really, what the hell do I know? There still may be some hope. I just do not see it.
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Communities are good at solving problems together, but as you say it is not enough. I hope the best minds across the globe are working on the tech fix together, you know, on some UN project for the greater good. That ought to go down well with the conspiracy theorists. You wonder whether you’re being nihilistic ….
In my defence, I am an optimistic realist, so no hope.
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Well, if we had a BBQ now, we would all be whining the whole evening instead of having fun :-). Or maybe we could drown it in large volumes of scotch!
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A BBQ would be fun no matter what. Unless, of course, it was we who were being BBQ’d! I had a hint of that twice this summer with the heat-domes. It was like being under the dome-lid on a BBQ. Still, all things considered, we are still alive, still kicking and still sipping wine…….If Nero could do it while Rome burnt, I can do it at the next dome-event. But Nero also had a fiddle…..damn!
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Well, we could all head to that stone age island in the Pacific where the inhabitants kill any newcomers on sight and eat them…..
They might have some useful recipes to share…..
:0
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I think the US has some Red state communities that do the same.
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Would we even make it to the recipe book or would we be in the tribal pot stewing nicely a minute after disembarking from the boat? It’s a plan, NonCon but, geez, the entry/exit timing seems a bit tight.
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