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Weather, Neonics, Gas Prices, Plagues, Climate Change

Groundhog Day Greetings from the Great White North



My Dear Cousin Punxsutawney Phil, Greetings from the Great White (and cold) North! My beloved Wilhelmina and I, rather belatedly, also thank for your letter from last year!
Phyllis and I hope you and the rest of Pennsylvania’s Marmotians are doing fine in the forests and meadows. At the very least, we trust you are hanging in as well as possible during these uncertain times. We feel lucky to live far away from the big city with constant hyper-activity. This neck of the woods is certainly more relaxed and easy-going. We rarely get visitors from far-away places but the neighborhood deer, turkeys, racoons, and other inhabitants of the woods are regular company. Luckily, so far we’ve had little snow this winter (despite the cold) and they love nibbling on the vegetation surrounding our burrow. Still, times are a-changing…

Times were…

Times were we would relish the thought of fall and winter coming soon to provide relief from the pesky insects and obsessive heat all summer. Well, we are well past those thoughts now. The last winter was brutally cold and long to begin with. The summer following wasn’t any better either, short and rather cool. We really had to work overtime to collect our winter rations in a hurry.

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Also, we used to enjoy long summers with many evenings munching on berries from the bushes but there were few berries last summer. Some people think it’s because of fewer honey bees. The government thinks it’s because of what people call neonics, a number insecticides that have been used for decades all over the world without any problems. Our friend, the beekeeper, says it’s poor beekeeping management that is the problem. His hives are right in the middle of large neonicotinoid-treated corn or soybean seed fields and he gets copious amounts of honey from his little friends. My dear Wilhelmina is really fond of that sweet stuff; I’ll need to get another batch of our friends’ honey soon. As to the world around us, things are changing everywhere and all the time. For example, some diseases just about forgotten are coming back with a vengeance. For a few decades now, almost every child got vaccinated against such scourges and their causative viruses or whatever. These diseases were just about eradicated. So, many thought and still think that no further caution is needed. Well, they are living in a dream world and by the goodwill of those of us who still go thru with all that rigmarole of vaccinations against these “non-existent” plagues like polio, measles, whooping cough (WC), and the like. I still remember getting WC in my childhood; most definitely, it was not a fun experience. As I speak of plagues…

Plagues

Your POTUS claims that “climate change” is a big danger to the world, like it’s a “plague-in-coming.” I think he is right as it has steadily been getting colder, notably closer to the earth poles where the sea-ice has been expanding to record levels in the Antarctic and it is similar here in our Arctic. Luckily for us, we do live far south of the Arctic Circle where the polar bears are roaming in ever larger numbers. Up to now, we only know them from the Canadian toonie coins hikers lose in the woods but the bears could spread into this area too, who knows? Apart from the normal plagues, there are some bright sides to life here as well, like the declining cost of gasoline.

Gasoline Cost

As you know, not all that long ago the cost of gas was rising faster than a hot-air balloon in the air. As you know, our offspring has found other places to live at and the constant coming and going of yesteryear has become a distant memory. Getting the kids to and from their extracurricular activities was a challenge, every day. Gas was dear and time was short. As of late, gas is quite cheap but we are not using much of it anymore and, with our current lifestyle, we are more likely to pass it these days. In contrast to gas prices, electricity costs are still rising, despite all that green “energy benefit” and other government jumble-mumble. When we got the bill for the entire year (2014), the actual energy cost was about 20% of the total bill! The remainder was delivery costs and other charges, like fees for covering the energy loss in a few miles of transmission wire. I guess we are lucky not to have fallen for any of the “alternative” electricity generation or pricing schemes that other burrows in the neighborhood are now wondering about. Many of them “locked-in” at costs that appeared about to spiral out-of-control a couple of years ago, much to their regret by now. Wilhelmina isn’t sure whether we should laugh at or commiserate with them. Anyways, prices could go up as fast as they came down, nothing is lasting anymore, except uncertainty. Uncertainty You will have heard of the Saudi King, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, having died last week. Well, he’s had a long life. His successor, King Salman, seems to be in poor health too and stated, just two weeks ago, that “… he endorsed the current oil policies.” In other words, if one thing is certain it is uncertainty. Wilhelmina thinks that reduced global oil demand can explain only part of the plummeting crude price. If the world’s consumption is exceeded by one percent of the world’ supply, how can the price fall by over 50% in short order? Wilhelmina says that other commodities have had production shortfalls (relative to demand) for years now and their prices have not changed much over that time. Well, I am wondering too. In any event, we hope you’ll have a great spring and summer, if and when they arrive! With our best wishes, Wiarton Willie & Wilhelmina


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Dr. Klaus L.E. Kaiser -- Bio and Archives

Dr. Klaus L.E. Kaiser is author of CONVENIENT MYTHS, the green revolution – perceptions, politics, and facts Convenient Myths


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