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Facts and speculation

February 6, 2020   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

Reality in the present can be stated firmly; reality in the future is primarily speculation. 

This assertion applies more to politics and your plans for this time next year, less so to science. In this era of a speeding train mentality at which most people are forced to live, reality seems to shift beneath our feet, while the versions of reality alter from minute to minute, depending on where you watch your news: the art of denial harmonizes with false claims of success.

One reality that is firm is that Donald Trump has been acquitted at his sham impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate. Just to prove how strange things become when Donald is part of the story, here it is. The Republican senators reckoned they didn’t have to to see or hear the evidence against the president because they know and agree that he did withhold about $4 million worth of military aid to Ukraine in exchange for the new president, Zelensky, a former comic, finding damaging information about Joe Biden’s son, at one time involved in business in Ukraine, that would influence the American election this year. 

Known as a quid pro quo – or “something [in return] for something,” in politics, especially, it is usually connected with bribery or extortion and is considered an impeachable offence when exercised by the president. 

That is no longer in question: most Republicans get it, know it and don’t care. The rationale of some of them was either, “If the president thought that this was an aid to his being re-elected and that was in the best interests for the American people, then he was working in their best interests and that is good.”

Or: “Yup, he did it but it’s not bad enough to bring him down in an election year – the people should decide.”

So, after all that Donald has done, with his endless tweets and outrageous behaviour and policies, his lies and ignorance, after all that we have put up with, he stands at the podium, talking about how good business is in the States, never needing to admit or deny anything ever again, being handed a clean carte blanche. Just goes to show that a American president is above the law. 

As Richard Nixon famously said, in his own defence, “When a President does it, that means it’s not illegal. Or, as Ronald Reagan used to say, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

Teenaged environmental activist Greta Thunberg, currently nominated for a second time, for the Nobel Peace Prize, is dealing with the slippery slope of a reality that is pretty clear in its speculation – she has a lot of science to back up her fears and lots of evidence world-wide that the worst of them are to come. The green sector of creating energy and industry is making major headway every day but politicians and fossil fuels industrialists are still pressing ahead as though nothing has ever been said, with new pipelines and permits to keep on digging in the earth and, increasingly, in our precious Arctic, for oil and gas.

The Trans Mountain Pipeline to which the Federal Court of Appeal finally gave its approval over the continued objections of Indigenous communities, will increase the flow of bitumen from Alberta through 980 kilometres of new pipeline to the pristine waters of Barnaby, B.C., a whale habitat, of an increase to one million barrels per day and to fill that pipeline, new and more aggressive methods of extracting the bitumen will be employed.

In October last year, Greta Thunberg was awarded and declined Nordic Council’s environmental award because “The climate movement doesn’t need any more awards, what we need is for politicians and people in power to start to listen to the current, most reliable science…There are still no signs whatsoever of the changes required.”

This is the key to Greta’s galvanizing global campaign, bringing hundreds of thousands of young people into the fray, calling for change, changing the face of green into what it is becoming: she only cares about the science, not the accolades or awards.

The message? As we have said here: what good is all the money if your lose everything, including your loved ones? Money and awards mean nothing if we won’t listen, believe and act on the science: don’t build pipe lines; don’t explore for new sources of oil; the alternatives are coming faster than expected; spend the monster mountains of investment money on them and employ people in new, clean energy.

Now. 

Okay, okay. How about this, just in: February is “talk face to face month,” a push to get young people away from only communicating on their screens and to talk actually to each other and, say, us, in the flesh, really and then, tell everybody on social media about it – with photos, of course.

One suggestion is, pay three people (even strangers, maybe easier) a compliment. Then, take a picture of them smiling at you for it. And share it.

What do we care about?

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