2020 is a plague, part 2 - a blog, in 1000 Words or Less
When I was a kid, I enjoyed visiting my grandparents, as all kids do. One thing that fascinated me about their home was the number of garbage cans. They had one for food waste, one for paper, one for metal and one for glass. This was long before Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and long before saving the planet and climate change became popular talking points although, change was on the wind. There were rumblings about the harms of disposable Bic pens. Grocery stores switched from brown bags to plastic, in order to Save The Trees. Four decades later, this seems an incredibly ironic change, given how plastic bags are being demonized and we’re seeing the return of paper. Anyway, for an eight-year old kid, recycling made perfect sense: less garbage meant fewer big, ugly garbage dumps which in turn meant the world was a better place, or at least, a prettier place. Why wouldn’t everyone do it?
Of course, the world is not a better place. Despite all our collective knowledge, skills, and technology, the world is an overflowing septic tank. Why is the…sludge…getting deeper, rather than disappearing? Wars are still being fought, mass shootings in the United States are common place, the Amazon rainforest (the "lungs of the world" produces twenty percent of the world's oxygen), is being logged, burned and poisoned, vast areas of the oceans are covered in a layer of plastic. It would be easy to go on, but why bother listing real issues when questionable problems with fake solutions exist and are being “dealt” with on a daily basis?
For instance:
When someone asks me with wide-eyed incredulity, why I don’t believe in climate change, my response is, “It’s not a matter of belief.” Science has proven climate change exists and has done so since The Big Bang. In other words, the climate is in constant change and has been doing so since the beginning of time. Everyone has heard about the Ice Age, right? Much less certain is whether or not humans are influencing or accelerating the rate of change. For every article “proving” the climate is changing because of our bad habits, there’s another “proving” it isn’t.
Despite the conflicting evidence, fighting climate change has become a political imperative in Canada. The inept man-child playing prime minister has decided the best way to fix the so-called problem is by instituting a carbon tax. Imagine if the time, effort and money was spent on verifiable problems with real solutions.
Treatment plants exist that turn sewage into clean water, so why do certain coastal cities still drain raw sewage into the ocean?
High efficiency incinerators exist that burn garbage down to essentially nothing while producing less than one percent emissions.
https://energynews.us/2013/10/17/midwest/is-burning-garbage-green-in-sweden-theres-little-debate/
In both examples, the technology required to make tangible environmental improvements don’t need to be researched or developed. They’re already in operation. Unfortunately, it’s easier to pretend the fish don’t mind the contaminants in their habitat and cheaper for Canada to ship garbage offshore in containers.
Pollution and environmental disasters aside, there are other issues that make the world a worse place than it was in the past, if for no other reason than experience means we should know better...
In the Xinjiang region of China, as many as 1.5 million Muslims, Christians and some foreign citizens, are imprisoned in “Vocational Educational and Training Centres.” These detention centres, also known as concentration camps, are operated outside the legal system for the stated purpose of countering extremism and terrorism. Inmates have reported systematic abuses including rape and torture with electric batons.
As everyone knows, Beijing imprisoned two Canadians in blatant retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Huawei executive, Meng Wanzhou. Recently a Chinese businessman was arrested for calling Xi Jinping a “clown.”
In an effort to intimidate supporters of an independent Taiwanese identity, China sent eighteen fighter jets over the Taiwan Strait in a large show of force. After crushing democracy in Hong Kong with virtually no global blowback, Taiwan must look particularly enticing to a country that is rapidly becoming the world’s largest super power.
For the overly sensitive people in the crowd, this is not subtle racism. I’m not a xenophobe. These are facts with which everyone should be deeply concerned…didn’t we learn everything we needed to know about police states, concentration camps and aggressive autocratic leaders, back in the 1940s?
Closer to home, the always opportunistic premier of British Columbia has called a provincial election. For those who’ve forgotten, John Horgan wasn’t elected. He stumbled into the job through an odd set of circumstances and has maintained his position by making deals with the Green party. Give credit where credit is due, Horgan did one thing right during his term: he kept his mouth shut with regards to the Coivd crisis. He let Doctor Bonnie Henry do the talking. Consequently, BC has done a decent job managing the pandemic. Since it’s doubtful Horgan could get elected on his own merits (and he’s probably smart enough to realize it), he’s decided to ride Dr. Henry’s coattails, calling an election at a time when BC’s population feels both “pleased” with our “success” and distracted by Covid.
Could there be a worse time for a snap provincial election in BC? Obviously not, given everything else on our minds…like a global pandemic and all the related fallout, to name a “for instance.” For an unprincipled leader though, this is the perfect time.
When referring to the state of the world, it would be nice to say, “It can’t get any worse.” Sadly, it can and it undoubtedly will. From China to BC, from the brutality of concentration camps to the hypocrisy of our premier, we’ve seen it all before. Changes in leadership won’t improve the world...
...but, despite the way it might seem, I do look for silver linings and elections are a time of hope.
The November election in the USA might mean an end to the orange narcissist’s reign, before he sexually assaults someone else, further divides his country with another unhinged rally or destabilizes the world with an incoherent speech in which he angers and insults other world leaders.
Given the manner in which Horgan became leader in BC, the way he’s unashamedly taking advantage of the current situation in the province, his fiscal ineptitude, and how the last NDP majority did such a poor job they ultimately lost official party status, do we really want to give this moron more time and another chance? A newly elected premier might be ethical and righteous and lead with balance rather than an expensive, naïve agenda that history has proven will push the province to the brink of bankruptcy.
In Ottawa, the man-child is following in his father’s footsteps, gleefully driving the country into incomprehensible levels of debt. If a federal election becomes a reality in 2021, maybe a change at the top in Ottawa will give us a forward-thinking leader who believes in proven technology rather than “science” that contains as many questions as facts. Maybe he’ll spend tax money on high efficiency incinerators, for example, shrinking big, ugly landfills and helping to remedy a real problem, as well as a problem that is less factual but more politically correct.
Seems simple enough. Even an eight-year-old can understand it.
Kevin
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