Ricky Blue

His LCC columns are archived here

RICKY BLUE

The Crisis Crisis

MONTREAL | We are living in a time of hyperbole and hysteria!!!! Never in the history of our planet has there been so much exaggeration!!!!

This is the century of crisis: the climate crisis, the food crisis, the real estate crisis, the monetary crisis, the garbage crisis, the oil crisis. Perhaps our Western world is going through a mass mid-life crisis. We are like that archetypal middle- aged man yearning for a little red sports car: we want to leave what we know and run away to another, better, different world.

It started with "climate change", the crisis formerly known as "Global Warming". They had to change the phrase when they decided that global warming didn't sound scary enough ("warming" actually sounds attractive), and climate change could cover any weather event (I'm waiting for the inevitable announcement that earthquakes are also caused by climate change). How ironic that the political left, represented in the U.S. by the Democratic Party, surround themselves with signs advocating "Change" at the same time as they all are absolutely against this so-called biggest change they claim is happening to the planet.

We used to blame everything on the weather. Now we blame the weather on ourselves.

Instead of my daily commute, it's now my daily pollute. Hey, I would buy a Prius in a Vermont minute, if only they were the same price as in the States instead of fifty percent higher up here -- the rigmarole you have to go through to import it is incredible.

I must say, though, now that environmentalists claim to know what will happen fifty years from now I'm really looking forward to the weather channel finally giving me an accurate seven-day forecast.

The real climate change we're seeing is the new climate of ideological conformity. If you dare raise a doubt about the "climate change crisis" you will be denounced as a heretic. Or, worse still, as taking money from the oil companies. Hey, I'd love to take some money from the oil companies. Does anyone know how I can get some? They've been taking my money long enough.

Many environmentalists advocate high gas prices as a way to discourage driving to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Now that they have their wish, food prices are going up because our food is all transported by trucks. So we have a food crisis. Duh!

Our media has attempted to persuade us that "the debate is over, " but it isn't. Indeed, as I speak, John Coleman, the founder of The Weather Channel in the U.S., is suing Al Gore for fraud. He believes that if "Global Warming Alarmists" are made to defend their science in court that their case will not hold up within a reasonable doubt. That will be an interesting case.

A neighbor of mine believes that global warming is caused by the absence of pirates. Since there are not many pirates left in the world and pirates are cool, the world is warming.

As someone who likes his environment, I am concerned that all this hype might be harming environmentalism in the long run, in the same way that fanatical Islamic Jihadism gives Islam a bad name. If, in fact, global warming is eventually proved to be caused by natural cycles and solar activity, environmentalism will be irrevocably tainted. Like when George Bush failed to find his Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. (He'll never live that one down.)

And when people claim that "the debate is over", aren't they just like GWB on the aircraft carrier claiming "mission accomplished?" It amazes me how the left and the right can often look exactly the same.