climate change hysteria

Weird Tales of The Great Stupid: O Canada!

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

I suppose it’s comforting to know that the U.S. isn’t quite as infected with the toxins of The Great Stupid as Great Britain or Canada. Yet.

The Goodfellas Wood Oven Pizza on Old Mill Dr. surprised diners recently with this at the bottom of the bill:

A 2% “carbon fee” ! For what, exactly? The bill explains:

Oh. Canada’s restaurant czars told reporters that the fee was legal since it wasn’t called a tax and that because the establishment’s website informs consumers that this is what they are in for, diners have to pay it. My reaction would be “Bite me!” If you are so fearful of the climate effects of eating, then don’t run a restaurant.The website explains in more detail, “what we eat fuels climate change. Goodfellas uses certified D.O.P products from Italy to remain true to the brand, and it’s not always possible to buy local. Adding 2% to every restaurant bill to invest in carbon capture will help offset our carbon footprint.”

The Toronto Sun’s article about this overt nickel-and-diming, virtue-signaling exercise says that the diners they interviewed said that the charge didn’t upset them. Canada, Land of Woke Weenies. The charge is unethical, obnoxious, and dumb. Anyone with any self-respect who hasn’t been indoctrinated and beaten into loving Greta Thunberg like Winston Smith loved Big Brother would refuse to pay the charge and dare the restaurant to have them arrested. Or say,”Fine: I’ll reduce my tip by three dollars.” Better yet, eliminate the tip entirely because the place had the gall to attempt this scam.

I don’t know how Canadians got this way, but it reminds me of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I think we need to start paying more attention to our northern border to keep these pod people out.

Unethical Headline of the Week: The LA Times

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

“How throwing soup at the Mona Lisa can help fight climate change”

You can read this opinion piece if you want, but the headline accurately conveys all you need to know by itself, I hope. The author, an associate professor of environmental studies at USC (so you know the quality of critical thinking and ethical analysis they are teaching there), essentially is making an argument for terrorism, because sometimes it works.

“Objections to acts of climate activism such as the latest food fight at the Louvre are understandable but might miss the point. Protesters’ perceived madness is indeed method,” Shannon Gibson writes. And the method is attracting attention to a cause by disruptive, selfish and destructive acts having no relationship to the goals of the activists. In some respects, violent acts of terrorism are easier to rationalize: at least those seeking a Palestinian state are directing their “method” at those with some direct relationship to the entity the terrorist blame for their plight. Throwing tomato soup at Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” or the Mona Lisa has no such relevance.

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From the “The Trouble With Protesters” Files…

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The trouble with protesters, to cut to the chase, is that a large percentage of them in virtually every protest and demonstration don’t know what they are chanting about and are just happy mob participants. I remember when my college was shut down by a student strike my freshman year, several of my friends were happily raising their fists and carrying signs despite the fact that they weren’t interested or informed on the matter being protested. They all reassured me that they were involved to meet girls. Later, in my first job after law school, the PR director I worked with in D.C. seemed to be attending a protest or rally every weekend. When I remarked that she was unusually politically active for someone who never discussed politics at all, she assured me that she just enjoyed the energy of crowds…and found it a good way to meet guys.

Since yesterday was “Capitol Insurrection Day,” which I predict will be made a national holiday as soon as Democrats get control of Congress, it seems a propitious opportunity to ponder an equally stupid protest in Clifton, Bristol (Great Britain). A resident reported that his Tesla’s tires were deflated, and on the windshield was this message:

Other automobiles on his street were also victims of tire-deflating. The group behind the mass flattening calls itself “the Tyre Extinguishers.” ( The play on words would work better if the Brits spelled “fire” as “fyre.”)

The annoyed Tesla owner told reporters, “It’s ironic, because I was trying to do the right thing by buying an electric car. It’s ridiculous and inconvenient. I get why [climate activism] is happening, but I’m not seeing the point of this.”

The point he ought to derive from the incident is that most climate change protesters know almost nothing about climate science and related matters, like the full environmental effects of electric vehicles. They are passionately protesting what they don’t understand sufficiently to have an informed opinion about, and therefore shouldn’t influence anyone beyond persuading observers that they are passionate, unethical dolts and blights on society.

One more point: deflating the tires of Teslas is a brilliant climate change protest compared to gluing oneself to a famous painting.

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Pointer: Curmie

The Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: Yeah, Thanks Lincoln Center, But I Think I’ll Skip “Jungle Book Reimagined”

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Surely there are still some live theater production that are not arm-twusting agitprop and woke propaganda. Surely.

The production is described on the Lincoln Center website as a “rethinking of the Rudyard Kipling classic ‘The Jungle Book'” that “updates the original’s colonizer-centric perspective.” More specifically, the New York Times review tells us,

“Instead of a boy raised by wolves, Mowgli is a refugee girl separated from her family as sea levels surge. She is adopted by animals who have formed a peaceable kingdom in a city that humans have left behind. Many familiar characters appear, slightly altered. Baloo the bear is now a bear who was forced to dance by humans before escaping the humiliation. The Bandar-log monkeys are now former lab specimens, still traumatized by being experimented on but longing to replace their former masters. Kaa the python is dangerous and hypnotizing but also hung up on memories of captivity in a zoo.”

Gee-what-fun. Can a Disney version be far behind?

Dear Hysterical Climate Change Protesters: Demanding Impossible Things Is Unethical…And Stupid

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I just couldn’t decide what graphic to use to introduce this ridiculous story, this photo from The “March to End Fossil Fuels” in Manhattan over the weekend…

…or this video from the Ethics Alarms clip archive:

I must say, I’m leaning toward the video. The protesters are morons.

It is impossible to “end fossil fuels” until there are practical, affordable, effective substitutes for fossil fuels in the myriad ways civilization depends on it. These and similar protests, fueled by cynical politicians trying to expand their power (and totalitarian agendas) and insufficiently educated and rational members of the public indoctrinated by media propaganda and fear-mongering, are the equivalent of infantile tantrums. End war! End hunger! End poverty! End inequality! End gun violence! End prejudice! My mother refused to accept that she had to die at some point, but at least she didn’t take to the streets to demand an end to mortality.

Morons.

Morons!

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A Climate Scientist Explains How Science, Academia And The Media Collude To Mislead The Public

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

The “climate scientist” in question is really a climate scientist: his name is Patrick T. Brown, and he is the co-director of Climate and Energy at The Breakthrough Institute. His article in the Free Press yesterday is essentially whistle-blowing on his own colleagues, and not only earns him an Ethics Hero designation, but also contains the Ethics Quote of the Month, which is both ethical in that he has the integrity and courage to make it, and a vivid description of unethical conduct that affects us all.

Here’s that quote:

“The paper I just published—“Climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California”—focuses exclusively on how climate change has affected extreme wildfire behavior. I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell.

“This matters because it is critically important for scientists to be published in high-profile journals; in many ways, they are the gatekeepers for career success in academia. And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.

“To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve.”

This is hardly shocking news, but it is shocking to have one of the scientists—Trust the science! Science is Real!-–who participates in fearmongering climate change propaganda as a means of controlling public policy stating outright what any objective and analytical observer should be able to figure out. Such objective and analytical observers are condemned and mocked routinely as “climate change deniers” and “conspiracy theorists.” His article shows that another description is warranted: right.

Read it all, even though it is likely to make you angry, and to want to shake the piece in the faces of your smug and ignorant climate change fanatic friends and relatives who keep citing “scientific consensus” as justification for expensive and futile efforts to avoid “Climate Armageddon.”

Other infuriating points:

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Nobody Intelligent Can Deny That Biden’s Statement In Florida That “Nobody Intelligent Can Deny The Impact Of The Climate Crisis” Proves That He Isn’t Intelligent Himself

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I was considering posting about a completely superfluous article in The Atlantic called “Why Biden Just Can’t Shake Trump in the Polls,” as an insult to the intelligence of the literate American public. Gee, that’s a tough one! What could the answer be (other than the fact that the biased and dishonest American pollsters haven’t started cheating yet)?

Could it be, perhaps, that Joe Biden has been a spectacular failure in the White House by almost any measure, has overseen an unprecedented attack on personal liberties and Constitution, has directed a banana republic-style effort to remove his primary political opponent by abuse of the justice system, and is older than dirt? Could it be that he is obviously in a state of cognitive decline from an intellectual foundation that was never adequate in the first place? I suppose readers of the Atlantic are so Trump-Deranged and dyed-in-indigo blue that none of that would occur to them.

This, in turn, got me thinking about my still-unfinished survey to determine whether Joe is the Worst American President Ever. I stalled after covering Woodrow Wilson, and realizing again how that awful man laps the field, making the task of covering the group of 18 POTUSes remaining (Woody was only #28) seem like a low priority. But the report about Biden’s statements in Florida over the weekend sparked an epiphany: even if Joe isn’t the worst President, he is unquestionably the dumbest. I don’t think anyone else comes close.

Back to Florida: After the President toured the damage in Florida from Hurricane Idalia, he had to politicize the visit by stating,

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More Weird Tales Of “The Great Stupid”: Martha Stewart Abuses An Iceberg

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Mock away. The climate change fanatics are truly bananas.

Lifestyle media icon Martha Stewart was vacationing on a cruise around Greenland and posted a photograph of a cocktail chilled by ice she said had been chipped off an iceberg. “End of the first zodiac cruise from @swanhelleniccruises into a very beautiful fjord on the east coast of Greenland,” she wrote in the post. “We actually captured a small iceberg for our cocktails tonight.” Wait a sec—Marlon would like a word…

Stewart was immediately scorched on social media because using ice from an iceberg is promoting global warming, or cruelty to icebergs, or anti-Semitic (“Iceberg, Goldberg, what’s the difference?”) or something. “Wealthy white people drinking their iceberg cocktails while the planet is in flames is a bit tone deaf,” wrote a typical hysteric. “Please don’t use an endangered whale or seal to make any elitist meals like you did with the disappearing iceberg,” wrote another. You know: morons.

Martha is no weenie: She followed up by posting a photograph of an iceberg and wrote, “Pleated iceberg. Perfect for cocktails!”

Perfect response, too.

I would have been tempted to post a photo of me eating a polar bear steak.

Unethical Quote Of The Month: Biden Climate Envoy John Kerry

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

“Without facts or economics on their side, they [“climate deniers”] flatly deny what is happening to our planet and what we must do to save it. They incite a movement against what they falsely label ‘climate change fanaticism,’ as they conveniently forget that the dictionary definition of a cult is the dismissal of facts in devotion to a lie.”

—-Biden Administration “climate envoy” John Kerry, speaking in Scotland after arriving on his private jet that emitted more carbon into the atmosphere than any of the automobiles I have driven or will drive in my lifetime.

Wow. Imagine, people actually voted for this boob to be President. And what a wonderful example of projection: has there ever been any movement that smacked of cultism more than the climate change freak-out? Kerry, whose entire public career has been a sustained war against facts (most people still think he’s Irish, for example), embodies the discredited theory that saying something is true when it isn’t constitutes a fact. Here’s a fact: crippling the U.S. economy to reach climate change policy goals will achieve nothing except hardship and disaster unless a magic formula is developed to force China, India, Russia and developing nations to do the same, and there is no such formula. What is it, then, that we “must do” to save the planet, John? Accept a Democratic Party dictatorship? Put the U.N. in charge of everything and everybody? Put YOU in charge?

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Insufficient Mockery Alert #2: Blaming The Maui Wildfires On Climate Change

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

You knew this was coming, right? The amazing thing was that it took so long for the climate change hysterics—aka pretty much the whole Democratic Party—to go do that voodoo that they do so well. As the horrible facts came in, it was pretty apparent to all but hopeless “Facts Don’t Matter” addicts that many factors helped cause the disaster in Maui, including administrative incompetence, warnings that were ignored, a deadly combination of hurricane winds and dry conditions, fallen power lines, and more. But the climate change Borg never lets any tragedy, disaster or weather-related anomaly go by without linking it to climate change. Too hot? Climate change! Too cold? Climate change! No snow? Blizzards? High winds? Sharks in the water? Racism? Poverty? Whatever. If it’s bad, climate change is the culprit.

Yet for some mysterious reason, ABC, which is owned by Disney who these days never heard a piece of woke propaganda that it didn’t want to shout to the metaphorical rafters, headlined a story, “Why climate change can’t be blamed for the Maui wildfires.” What did ABC think would happen?

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