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Have a hot one

19 May 2021 | OP ED Watch

If you thought activism was a whole lot of no fun, may we suggest you crack a bad-tasting beer? Yes, fresh from attacking your dog, the misery brigade brings you “Torched Earth Ale” intended to horrify you with “the kind of ingredients that would be available in a climate-ravaged future including: smoke-tainted water, drought-resistant grains, shelf-stable extracts and dandelion weeds” instead of hops. The same firm makes a “Fat Tire” beer that is “America’s first certified carbon neutral beer” and if you believe that, you’re probably well into the carbonated adult beverages already. Wait. Carbonated? Isn’t that the dreaded carbon dioxide spewing forth along with the nonsense?

By the way this thing about dandelions is apparently big with the climate alarm set. And not only because like hops they help preserve beer. It seems the hair shirt aspect also appeals.

Thus (h/t Paul Homewood) the Telegraph, once a conservative publication, tells us experts say we’re gonna eat weeds. “A warming climate means we will be unable to rely on many of our traditional crops, experts at Kew Gardens believe.” Because, we’re to believe, crops don’t grow in parts of the world that are warmer than Britain. So bye bye potatoes, hello osulus tuberosa. The specific problem being that “potato blight, a disease which can wipe out the whole crop, is becoming more common because of a warmer climate in this country.”

Thus in 2019 Britons grew a mere £771 million worth of potatoes so you can see how grim things are. And instead of ignoring the lettuce until it rots in the back of the fridge, we’ll be avoiding “orache” or something called “tree spinach”. So much for CO2 causing greening, we suppose. Or at least greening of anything you actually want to eat. (Though like the scientists saying climate change will soon make fruit flies infertile, one wonders whether it’s not some sort of prank, given for instance that “Drosophila species are found all around the world, with more species in the tropical regions” suggesting that warmth hasn’t historically been lethal to them.)

Whether this broad category of climate killjoys also includes the bands asking for taxpayer money so they can stop touring depends, we suppose, on whether the music was any good anyway. But we would include the New York Times being glad people are showering less thanks to the pandemic.

Turns out cleanliness wasn’t next to Godliness after all. Or perhaps it was and the Times does not favour the latter. But in any case “Bathing less = better skin and a cleaner planet” whereas “frequent washing means going through more plastic bottles and using more soap, which is often made with petroleum.” So “The individual choice to stop showering or bathing daily is a critical one to make at a time when environmentalists are calling on countries to take more action against climate change, Mr. McCarthy, the environmentalist, said.”

He’s “Donnachadh McCarthy, an environmentalist and writer in London who grew up taking weekly baths” so as with Roz Chast’s “Where the ecologically correct meets the pathologically frugal” it’s a happy confluence. Strange how often climate activists turn out to be killjoys or worse. Though bad beer and worse personal hygiene ought at least to foster social distancing. And perhaps, like the Spartans’ infamous black broth, reduce our fear of death.

3 comments on “Have a hot one”

  1. Cleanliness is next to Godliness? To quote Dickens' 'Great Expectations':
    "Mrs Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion."
    Since climate change is no longer a science but rather a religion, many of its adherents seemed to want to make life as uncomfortable as possible, not only for themselves but for everyone else. Let us atone for our climate sins, brethren (and sistren), by eating disgusting squishy things and not bathing.
    Indeed climate change seems to have become the new Puritanism. To quote H.L.Mencken, "Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy".

  2. So, can I qualify for carbon credits by consuming carbonated beverages?
    If I drink and don't burp, will someone pay me for carbon-capture?

  3. Sorry to burst your bubble David, but your carbon capture method is negated by the breathing process. But all is not lost, science is working on this human design fault as we speak and according to their computer models they will have an updated and carbon neutral human by 2100.

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