Henry Schulte
The author is a regular contributor to Voices. He lives in Santa Ynez.
If you ever needed more proof that mankind still can’t think for himself or herself, look no further than the great “ban the straw” incident. Like a “global warming” wildfire, in a matter of weeks, the straw had become the single most dangerous thing on the planet.
You would have thought that if it wasn’t removed from the face of the earth immediately that turtles everywhere would start dying in droves. The world over frantically needed to end this deadly turtle killer as soon as possible. Laws were passed overnight criminalizing places of business if they continued to hand out these deadly weapons to its customers. Our own City Council deemed it so critical they made national news when they were threatening arrests for violators. Of course, the guy shooting up heroin on the streets is OK. He’s going through a rough period in his life. But the turtle…
To perpetuate this global fear that the end is near, the high priests of climate change have turned to the children of the world. What better way to keep the hysteria alive by working on the minds of the impressionable? If you were to ask any of those kids who marched where they got their information and what they based their walkout on, my guess is most didn’t have a clue other than they were told it was true, and do as you’re told.
Let’s briefly examine just a handful of the hundreds of the great predictions of gloom and death that never happened. In the early 1970s, the fear was global cooling and hair spray. The big deal was we were heading into an ice age and aerosol cans were causing holes in the ozone layer. Just like its sister killer, the straw, aerosol cans needed be done away with. Of course, that eventually quieted down, as will the great straw debacle.
So what changed in 40 years or so since our last ice age? Hard for me to say who brainstormed this huge money maker for the environmentalists, and how it has now become one the greatest tools for the left to use for political points but, along with guns, climate change has become manna from heaven and the talking point of the century. We’re all going to die! I could predict that one.
Al Gore, one of the high priests of “the sky is falling,” stuck his neck out years ago making frightening predictions. He also made millions with his false prophecies. Sea levels are going to rise by 20 feet and kill us all. He didn’t say exactly when, which was shrewd on his part. But even 20 inches would have been catastrophic.
The fact is, the oceans have been rising for the last 10,000 years. Not really news. Mt. Kilimanjaro was going to lose its snow cap, but 2018 brought the largest snowfall in years. And what about the polar bears? We were inundated with how all the polar bears were dying and losing their home. It was huge news. That story sure got quiet. Mostly because since 2005 the population has grown by 30%, to some 30,000 polar bears, the highest estimate in 50 years.
Al Gore’s “inconvenient truth” has been proven wrong on nearly every point. Why isn’t he called out on it? Why isn’t anyone called out on it? The Democratic Party’s presidential candidates continue with the charade because they don’t have anything else to run on except fear, and now the children of the world are being pulled into it. The exploitation of children was another good publicity stunt, and more fodder to push forward the agenda of terror.
And for those reading this column screaming at me that I’m a climate change denier, which nowadays labels you as an evil person and a heathen of the Earth, I say to you: Get off the train of group think and into your own Prius.
I’ve said it before: I have no doubt the climate is changing; it changes every day. But the way it’s being tackled by the church of “I’m right and you’re wrong” is all dishonest. If you really believe man is the cause, you can’t claim that we’re all going to die in 12 years, when even the school kids know better than that. And to be such elitists in America and impose massive guilt, regulations and increase energy costs on the masses, but not make the effort global, is a waste of time. It’s a joke to focus all your energies at home when the real problems are created in other countries, which are simply chosen to be ignored. You accomplish practically nothing trying to yank people out of their cars while you’re sucking in the smog of China, which doesn’t give a whit about air quality or its own people, but we still suffer the consequences.
Do I and anyone else want to keep our planet healthy? I think the answer is 100% yes, we do. But this is a game. It’s political posturing for financial gain and ultimately a power grab. And people just get sucked up like lemmings in a vacuum and march to the drums of “this is what I’m told to believe” and therefore it has to be true. It’s like saying if you don’t believe in God, you’re destined for eternal damnation.
All the numbers are fudged. Every single one, including the number of polar bears. Nothing is to be believed anymore. But when it began with the 1970s ice age, then “global warming” and now the all-inclusive “climate change,” don’t get swayed by the winds of what you want to hear. To accomplish any real change at all, go to China, India and South America, and demand they clean up their acts.
It’s awfully easy to march down the streets of your hometown, protected by the police while sipping a coffee (in a foam cup no less), and say you’re doing something to make a difference.
No, you’re not. You’re going to get back in your gas-operated car, go to your house, charge your cell phone, turn on your lights and watch TV, and pat yourself on the back that you did something to change the world today. Tomorrow you’ll just go back about your business and listen to the politicians rant and rave about how they’ll be the ones who will really do something about it.
Since when has a politician done anything to make a difference, other than spend your money? And give the poor kids a break; they have enough to deal with at their age.
