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| Photo: Ileana Johnson 2018 Frozen River |
Polar bears
have not drowned, we found out they are quite good swimmers, and their numbers
around the world have quintupled. Nat Geo showed us a video of an emaciated and
sick bear, as an example of what global warming is doing to these poor little creatures,
tugging at our environmental heart strings.
The polar ice
caps have not melted, on the contrary they grew significantly, islands were not
swallowed by the sea, ocean front cities are still there and not buried under
feet of water as he predicted.
Millionaires
with money to burn keep buying and building very expensive yachts, outrageous homes
by the sea, and carbon spewing jets. They are not worried about their carbon
foot print, only you, devoted minions, who listened to him with reverence and fear,
have to drive around in unsafe tin cans, ride bikes, and live in tiny homes in
order to save the planet from environmental Armageddon. Environmentalists are
laughing all the way to the bank.
Delta is
still passing cute little Coca Cola white napkins imprinted with the picture of
a mama polar bear and her two little cubs, a symbol of cuteness around the
holidays and a reminder that we must preserve such beauty and tranquility in
nature while we are flying at 37,000 ft. and sipping our favorite beverages.
As the media
escalates its non-stop apocalyptic fixation with climate change and clever scaremongering
such as “cyclone bomb,” and “polar vortex,” I can still vividly see the picture
of my childhood winters when I walked to school via snow tunnels cut through
mountains of piled high white fluffy snow way above our heads, fierce winds
cutting our faces with stinging wet snow turned into tiny projectiles, stepping
into slush to cross the street, so dirty and deep that sometimes it over-flowed
inside my boots, reaching school with wet and frozen feet, necessitating
removing the socks and placing them on the heater coils to hopefully dry by the
time school was out and the trek back home began. My hands were frozen despite
the thick wool mittens my grandma knitted every fall in preparation for the
winter onslaught. It was not global warming in the summer, it was not the
climate change industry profiteers telling us that Armageddon was near, it was
just seasons as we've had them for millennia.
When the sun
came up it turned everything into a shiny skating rink on which we, the
pedestrians often slipped and fell, suffering injuries then or later on in life
when arthritis from injuries began to creep up.
If it warmed
up more and the snow started to melt, the slush would overwhelm the street drains
and we would get splashed by passing buses who were going a bit too fast and
too close to the edge of the road for the treacherous driving conditions. Then
everything would refreeze when the sun went down, to the delight of children
everywhere who could sled with renewed speed or ice skate. God’s nature skating
rink was cheap and everywhere.
As children
we would stay out all day, building snow men, sledding down the hill into the
street below that had little traffic, getting our outside clothes wet. We never
felt the elements, we kept on moving and sweating, our coats and pants would
freeze, and did not go inside until moms or dads would come fetch us, usually
when it started to get dark and the street lights would come on.
I visited
the hill of my childhood sledding – it was occupied by high rises and steps had
been dug into the hill. In the street below, a menacing pack of stray dogs was
coming in my direction. I did not take a chance and returned to my parked car
in the street on top of the hill.
Grandma’s
village is semi-unchanged except for the asphalted roads. It would be dangerous
and hard to pull a sled now on such heavy-trafficked roads. The road drains are
no longer the muddy ditches we played in during hot summers. And no, Al Gore,
it was not global warming, summers were hot and we sought shade and bathing in
the clear river, with the fishes swimming around us.
The college “snowflakes”
of today would have to be provided with warm shelters in winter and cool shade
during hot summers. They would have no idea how to survive in harsher
conditions because they’ve been so chickified and softened. The pioneer spirit
that helped their ancestors survive the harsh conditions of the Wild West had sadly
demised long time ago.
Today the
college “snowflakes” are expert whiners about the “hurtful” words they cannot
bear to hear. Take their smart devices away, free birth control, and “recreational”
pot, and they are totally lost.
