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In other words, lunatics are running the asylum

Loons, Loonies, and Lunatics


Dr. Klaus L.E. Kaiser image

By —— Bio and Archives August 12, 2017

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On the many lakes covering the continental Granite Shield, the Common Loon is a regular sight that everyone enjoys. Typically you'll only see one pair in any one lake or embayment. It's not only just their steadfast, self-reliant habit and their splendid black & white plumage. As other water fowl, the loons mate for life but what really entrances people are the loons' calls. The most recognizable and enchanting one is the melancholic call for its mate.
No wonder Canada made the loon a national emblem on its one-dollar coin that replaced the then current drab banknote three decades ago. The populace quickly adopted the coin under the term "Loonie." These brass-colored coins are used by millions of Canadians in everyday commerce in the country and have later been supplemented by two-dollar coins depicting another icon of northern environs, the polar bear. Those coins became known as "Poly" and "T[w]oonie"--mostly used is the latter term, in analogy to the Loonie. Of course, most readers will know quite well, the Oxford or Webster Dictionaries have quite different interpretations for the term "loonie," as described below.

Loonies of a different kind

Webster's defines "loony" as a crazy or daft person; I'll admit that my copy of that dictionary is a few decades old. So, let's consult the (nearly) brand-new Oxford: It describes loonies as mad or silly persons. Only mischievous minds like me could get the idea that the term could apply to some people in high office, like the kind found in some provincial and federal ministries. Surely, anyone in his/her right mind must think it to be perfectly normal that one segment of the population (let's call them "climate change preventologists") wants to make all inexpensive and reliable energy sources like coal, oil, and natural gas prohibitively expensive in favour of unreliable forms like wind and solar power. And that at the same time the country's coal, oil, and natural gas producers cannot find sufficient customers for their energy products. The fossilized (?) anti-fossil fuel clique, AKA "save-the world-preventologists" keep warning us of an "ice-free Arctic", of Greenland's ice cap melting faster than an ice cream cone in the hot sun and its ice "greening" with algae blooms.

Facts are irrelevant

Greenland's growth of ice mass is near a record high, the Arctic sea-ice cover is going through its natural seasonal cycle without any aberration, the polar bears are more in danger from freezing to death than from drowning, the Antarctic's Emperor penguins still have to march miles from their "nesting" sites to the open water, and the oceans' sea levels have even been falling. Facts to the contrary to the preventologists' preconceived notions are entirely irrelevant, especially if they don't fit their dire proclamations of a pending doom. What's worse though is their near universal lack of being able to differentiate between cause and consequence. The only solution they can think of is more of the same "medicine" to solve their "crisis." If need be they don't think twice about forcing their medicine down the throats of the plebes and to liaise with the earthly Disciple-in-Charge. As the Borg said, "Resistance is futile." Clearly then, if ten thousand windmills don't provide the power needed when the wind isn't blowing, then we must build more, perhaps hundreds of thousands, or even millions of these monstrosities. And if the last migratory bird, bat, and butterfly on their migration pathways gets "shredded" by the flailing blades, blame the "anti-preventologists" for that too. It's a Win-Lose situation; the power brokers and their cronies are bound to win, all others will lose.


Win-Lose Deals

One of such Win-Lose deals is the promise of boundless free (or nearly so) energy in the future. It goes hand in hand with advisories about the new "wonder fuel" to power the world. A couple of decades ago, all the pundits claimed that to be hydrogen. Now, of course, the hydrogen idea (you know where that has gone) has morphed into the great lithium promise. However, energy storage devices are not energy sources. What the proponents of either idea never seem to understand is that these elements (hydrogen, lithium) could only be energy carriers, as opposed to energy sources. As energy carrier they both are way behind common gasoline, diesel, or natural gas in terms of energy storage capacity per units of weight and volume, safety of handling and reliability of use, and the existing infrastructure throughout most of the western world. The current craze to "decarbonize" and leave the earth's abundant and cheap carbon-type energy sources buried in the ground and to rely on futuristic energy storage and carrier systems just to save the earth from some imaginary climate problem hundreds or thousands years hence is simply loony. In other words, lunatics are running the asylum.

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

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


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