Tidbits

A perky item from the San Bernardino Sun offers “16 free fun things to do in July in Southern California” because “It’s summertime, and that means it’s time to get outside and have some fun.” But wait. Surely Southern California is a famous hot place, ravaged by global heading, swept by wildfires and who knows what all. Go outside? Are you insane? Or is it the climate fearmongers who’ve gone mad, and summer has stayed nice? Dare to go out and see, we say.
Climate ate my house! So says the Guardian (or, more exactly, climate will eat my house, followed by treating some wild speculation about the future as sober reporting about the present). “As hotter, drier summers driven by global heating become more frequent, the ground under houses can shrink and drag down a property’s foundations. The most vulnerable areas include London, Essex, Kent and a tranche of land from Oxford up to the Wash on England’s east coast, according to scientists, who say mitigation measures will be needed.” So climate change will cause hot, dry conditions that will yank the ground out from under British houses, unless it causes cold, wet conditions which will surely yank the ground out from under British houses according to… um… the Guardian.
Veteran Canadian journalist Peter Menzies recently noted significant outrage among Canadian sports journalists when the coach of Canada’s World Cup men’s soccer team admitted that he’d lied about an injury to a star player to deceive opposing teams. “I was glad the sports reporters pushed back when they were lied to,” he said. “Reporters’ first obligation, after all, is to the truth. But wouldn’t it be nice, I thought, if the nation’s Parliamentary Press Gallery could get as excited about the prime minister fantasizing about things like a market for decarbonized oil and bizarre affordable housing plans that reek of a corporate bailout as they do a football coach fibbing about his lineup.” Well, yes. Far too much of the MSM is activist in the worst say, speaking power to truth not the other way around, and have been for so long they’re liable to brush off Menzies’ critique as demented rather than merely naïve, and get right back to peddling state propaganda as if it were a dignified and useful way to spend one’s life and earn one’s state-subsidized keep.
From the “settled science” file, CTV reports that “The Sun may not engulf Earth after all, scientists say”. And the AFP story in question explains that some five billion years from now, “As the sun expands and its blistering surface approaches Earth, intense tidal waves will stir within the star. When they dissipate, it will pull Earth into its doomed embrace.” We use the term “explains” loosely: the journalist thought when gravity stopped it would take effect. Which make you wonder what else they don’t get. For instance “However, the growing sun will also lose a lot of its mass due to stellar wind, which pushes our planet further away.” Uh, guys, the point is if the sun gets less massive its gravitational pull will decrease. But never mind. (And never mind that in classic modern journalistic fashion the story doesn’t contain a link to the study.) The point is, it’s unclear how the two processes, one pulling the already dead Earth in and one letting it escape, will balance out. If only CTV and AFP had the same open-minded attitude about climate change engulfing the Earth.
Canada’s National Post reports that Canada is lifting a two-year ban on the “controversial” rodenticide called strychnine “following damages worth hundreds of millions by a particular rodent in Alberta and Saskatchewan.” But it took so long for the government to act that farmers won’t be able to use it until next year, despite an exodus of businesses from the agricultural sector due to the cumbersome regulatory environment. And while strychnine may be “controversial” it’s certainly not new or unfamiliar. It has been known since ancient times, though it wasn’t chemically analyzed until the 19^th century, in time for Agatha Christie to use it repeatedly (in her fiction, we hasten to add). But when governments tell you they’re cutting edge, wiser, more decisive and faster-moving than the dumb destructive private sector, remind yourself and them of this kind of episode. (Or that the US FDA just approved the first new sunscreen filter ingredient in 27 years.)
We were wrong, but completely right, according to Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney. The Toronto Sun reports that “in a 17-minute video posted on his YouTube page” Carney admitted Canada won’t meet the emission reduction targets set by the former Justin Trudeau government. Not because they were unworkable, oh no. “The climate plan we inherited from the previous government was well-intentioned and well-suited for the times in which it was designed,” Carney said. Moreover, “The climate crisis is still with us and our commitment to fighting it is absolute – but the certainties of the world in 2015 are long gone.” Of course they weren’t so much certainties as trendy fatuities. As is talking about “the times in which it was designed” as if 2015 was back in the Renaissance. As for good intentions, they pave a famous lost highway. And what can anyone, friend or foe, now conclude that Carney’s absolute commitment amounts to, or will once times change dramatically and certainties vanish yet again?

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