Whenever I need to take a break from the fascinating world of energy and the transition, I visit Bored Panda. An ultra-liberal, rainbowy website, the Panda is nevertheless a great place for a break because of its “Funny” section.
“According to them, Earth is sensitive to human influence... “ but apparently not to a massive asteroid strike like the one that created the Grand Canyon. However did the Earth get over its allergic reaction?
Speaking of language and Pandas... there is a book by Lynn Truss, entitled: “Eats, shoots and leaves”. It’s about the importance of punctuation and how it can change meanings. It was published a few years back and caused a stir among many who think using correct grammar and spelling, and pronunciation, is no longer necessary. Being able to speak and write English is dying out in the UK. A vocab of no more than 500 words, not speaking in whole sentences using words of less than one syllable is all that is required... knah’ wot ah meeeen, innit?
Back on topic, slightly, there are some useful French words I use in comments on-line that can replace English words to avoid the prowling censors. I think perhaps ‘they’ just ‘think’ they are misspelled or not real English words.
“... this year’s COP who called for tripling wind and solar capacity by 2030.” We’re getting two more Suns? 😎 Musk launching them on his low carbon rockets?
Language plus a large audience plus a hot topic is indeed a powerful combination. The Climate Alarmism category received a huge turbo boost four years ago from “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words”. Now that’s an easy bandwagon to jump on. Right?
But take the exact same speech, throw in some salt and pepper, and you get the following. The first time I saw this I couldn’t stop laughing. Many would consider my reaction disgusting behavior:
Probably all my long life, I have played against these word games. Yesterday in a post on another substack I pointed out that I only burn organically grown natural fuel made primarily with solar energy in my large truck. The only part of that fuel that is not organically grown, is the ten percent of biofuel that I am forced to consume by regulations (that would be the ethanol/biodiesel which is grown with man-made fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides). Instead the gasoline and diesel I burn is organically grown. It was produced by solar energy powering photosynthesis in marine plankton, which died, were buried, and with some input from geothermal nuclear energy, were naturally converted to oil and gas. Oil, petroleum, natural gas, hydrocarbons, whatever you want to call it is NATURAL. Oil is as natural as I am, and was produced by life, and is still being produced by life. But the stupidity of language has allowed many to have no understanding of the meaning of words like organic, which they think means some special warm fuzzy type of farm product or hemp clothing, and the word natural, which they attempt to define as to exclude humans and natural organic products such as oil, coal and natural gas. So I insist that my truck, as big as it is, is powered by solar power. Let them chew on that.
I remember from time to time seeing on the news some poor kid who was allergic to everything, having to live in a bubble and wondering just how horrible that would be. These kids who believe and write this drivel about the earth must live in a bubble in front of their computers.
I remember back many moons ago (1980's) writing a "creative" marketing piece for our new business and certainly used much of that flowery drivel that meant really nothing. Now companies have really taken it to the highest level and developed the propaganda to perfection. That is now infecting the rest of the world.
You are right it does take a linguist to decipher just what they are saying. Not much!
As far as the earth is concerned, it's just fine and if I stopped mowing my grass within a few years my home and land would be devoured by trees, weeds and the earth would have reclaimed it's own. I'm glad it shared it with me for a short while!
I remember a comedian, who always stayed away from politics in his schtick. He had had a moderately good career so far, but wanted better; wanted to find his way onto the sitcom path, so he spoke the shibboleths.
He damned conservatives in congress; he damned the president at the time; he damned the oil companies.
He gave ‘em hell.
Next thing you know, he had a lead part in a sitcom on NBC, and a 3-part Netflix special.
I always love your analogies, Irina, and this was a particularly good one!
And this? Priceless!: "Nature is a mother and not a helicopter one."
Indeed she is, but while we're talking about our current young(er) generation, allow me to share my observations about the current under-18's in the US.
My son is 17, a senior in high school who will graduate next May. He and his 20-some close friends are actually very grounded and not easily offended like the generation before them, and are also surprisingly conservative! Now, many of them will go off to college next Fall and that may change everything, but the way they see the world as of right now gives me a glimmer of hope.
In the meantime, yes, we are in dire straights, because we're being ruled by complete imbeciles.
I've got to say this article of yours spells out just how deep the rot is. We are living in a world that largely considers reality to malleable and is definable by how many people believe a thing. Challenges remain unsolved because few people are prepared to test their beliefs against the real world. Tilting at windmills prevails (sic).
Exacerbating the situation are intellectual and political leader that consider 'stigmatizing' anyone is more traumatic that challenging erroneous thinking, an inevitable derivative from the trend to label harsh words as harmful as a punch in the hose.
As language is our thinking and communicating tool, both are in a steep decline. Few people realize civilization is at stake. Thanks for being someone that does.
Thank you Irina. I now know that I am not alone among the Walking Dead who are trudging off to that great solar farm carved out of the bush, destroying the very thing that nature put there to deal with the rubbish that we put into the air. In fact, in Australia, because it is a big place with few people - and we've given what manufacturing industry that we had to the Chinese - and despite the epic land clearing in the last 200 years, there is still enough forest left to sequester all of Australia's carbon dioxide emissions and more. Yet, we have sufficient walking dead among us to trudge off spending trillions to destroy what was a completely good electricity system, because of those words "fossil fuels". And yet, according to the walking dead in Germany, Australia is not trudging fast enough. Bloody hypocrites! I am definitely not a CC denier. Whereas, we could be doing other things like examining, or even stopping, land clearing (at a world champion rate) for even more cattle, looking at ways to conserve water in drylands cropping soils and so on to help capture even more of our neighbour's CO2! Oops, I may have just offended someone!
Everything is PR now. The corporate world has been perfecting this newspeak nonsense for a long time, but now it is literally everywhere.
I’m just glad my “unchilding” phase was in the 80s and 90s where we in the west started to see how the Soviet Union used all this language policing for control. Sadly we have history again now, so everything must be controlled narrative.
The concept of creating a new reality by selecting the approved code, or buzz words, reminds me of a very true saying. With apologies to Swine, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.
Language.
“According to them, Earth is sensitive to human influence... “ but apparently not to a massive asteroid strike like the one that created the Grand Canyon. However did the Earth get over its allergic reaction?
Speaking of language and Pandas... there is a book by Lynn Truss, entitled: “Eats, shoots and leaves”. It’s about the importance of punctuation and how it can change meanings. It was published a few years back and caused a stir among many who think using correct grammar and spelling, and pronunciation, is no longer necessary. Being able to speak and write English is dying out in the UK. A vocab of no more than 500 words, not speaking in whole sentences using words of less than one syllable is all that is required... knah’ wot ah meeeen, innit?
Back on topic, slightly, there are some useful French words I use in comments on-line that can replace English words to avoid the prowling censors. I think perhaps ‘they’ just ‘think’ they are misspelled or not real English words.
“... this year’s COP who called for tripling wind and solar capacity by 2030.” We’re getting two more Suns? 😎 Musk launching them on his low carbon rockets?
Thank you. I can see more clearly now through the fog of idiocy growing around us.
Language plus a large audience plus a hot topic is indeed a powerful combination. The Climate Alarmism category received a huge turbo boost four years ago from “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words”. Now that’s an easy bandwagon to jump on. Right?
But take the exact same speech, throw in some salt and pepper, and you get the following. The first time I saw this I couldn’t stop laughing. Many would consider my reaction disgusting behavior:
https://youtu.be/1kD1zubg3cA?si=Hcn_SffmtVYvf8NV
Probably all my long life, I have played against these word games. Yesterday in a post on another substack I pointed out that I only burn organically grown natural fuel made primarily with solar energy in my large truck. The only part of that fuel that is not organically grown, is the ten percent of biofuel that I am forced to consume by regulations (that would be the ethanol/biodiesel which is grown with man-made fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides). Instead the gasoline and diesel I burn is organically grown. It was produced by solar energy powering photosynthesis in marine plankton, which died, were buried, and with some input from geothermal nuclear energy, were naturally converted to oil and gas. Oil, petroleum, natural gas, hydrocarbons, whatever you want to call it is NATURAL. Oil is as natural as I am, and was produced by life, and is still being produced by life. But the stupidity of language has allowed many to have no understanding of the meaning of words like organic, which they think means some special warm fuzzy type of farm product or hemp clothing, and the word natural, which they attempt to define as to exclude humans and natural organic products such as oil, coal and natural gas. So I insist that my truck, as big as it is, is powered by solar power. Let them chew on that.
I remember from time to time seeing on the news some poor kid who was allergic to everything, having to live in a bubble and wondering just how horrible that would be. These kids who believe and write this drivel about the earth must live in a bubble in front of their computers.
I remember back many moons ago (1980's) writing a "creative" marketing piece for our new business and certainly used much of that flowery drivel that meant really nothing. Now companies have really taken it to the highest level and developed the propaganda to perfection. That is now infecting the rest of the world.
You are right it does take a linguist to decipher just what they are saying. Not much!
As far as the earth is concerned, it's just fine and if I stopped mowing my grass within a few years my home and land would be devoured by trees, weeds and the earth would have reclaimed it's own. I'm glad it shared it with me for a short while!
BRAVO❗️ Very well said.
I remember a comedian, who always stayed away from politics in his schtick. He had had a moderately good career so far, but wanted better; wanted to find his way onto the sitcom path, so he spoke the shibboleths.
He damned conservatives in congress; he damned the president at the time; he damned the oil companies.
He gave ‘em hell.
Next thing you know, he had a lead part in a sitcom on NBC, and a 3-part Netflix special.
Speak the shibboleths, and advance.
I always love your analogies, Irina, and this was a particularly good one!
And this? Priceless!: "Nature is a mother and not a helicopter one."
Indeed she is, but while we're talking about our current young(er) generation, allow me to share my observations about the current under-18's in the US.
My son is 17, a senior in high school who will graduate next May. He and his 20-some close friends are actually very grounded and not easily offended like the generation before them, and are also surprisingly conservative! Now, many of them will go off to college next Fall and that may change everything, but the way they see the world as of right now gives me a glimmer of hope.
In the meantime, yes, we are in dire straights, because we're being ruled by complete imbeciles.
I've got to say this article of yours spells out just how deep the rot is. We are living in a world that largely considers reality to malleable and is definable by how many people believe a thing. Challenges remain unsolved because few people are prepared to test their beliefs against the real world. Tilting at windmills prevails (sic).
Exacerbating the situation are intellectual and political leader that consider 'stigmatizing' anyone is more traumatic that challenging erroneous thinking, an inevitable derivative from the trend to label harsh words as harmful as a punch in the hose.
As language is our thinking and communicating tool, both are in a steep decline. Few people realize civilization is at stake. Thanks for being someone that does.
“Saving the Planet”
Who will pay damages
to the world’s people,
if “saving the planet”
turns out an enormous
waste of priceless
natural resources and precious capital?
Will the 3.5 billion people
in energy poverty
be able to “sue and settle?”
Legal warfare
against the Green NGOs,
environmental activists,
Over-reaching governments,
bloated federal agencies,
UN-like international groups,
one-eyed major media,
and echo chambers universities…
if they are just plain wrong?
Steve Heins
My Story
So, here is my story, I have
no earthy college degrees,
a couple of French courses short.
I have been a very good golfer,
basketball player, small town boy,
six time winner of greased pig contest,
big city man, businessman,
interstate highway drifter,
high and low plains America adventurer,
self-indulgent, distant father,
auto-didactic, Ivy Leaguer, scholar,
student, lost soul, historian, art historian,
musicologist, poet, poetry aficionado,
business writer, economist, “Blizzard of One” broadband “David” to
high speed Internet “Goliaths,” Internet Open Access champion,
practical environmentalist,
energy efficiency expert, member of Chicago Climate Exchange,
3-times matrimony loser, lobbyist, technology theorist, Bakken Basin podcaster, energy practicality, political advocate pain in the ass
and all around gadfly simply…
because I was self-appointed.
It's so much easier,
now that I confessed.
Steve Heins
Thank you Irina. I now know that I am not alone among the Walking Dead who are trudging off to that great solar farm carved out of the bush, destroying the very thing that nature put there to deal with the rubbish that we put into the air. In fact, in Australia, because it is a big place with few people - and we've given what manufacturing industry that we had to the Chinese - and despite the epic land clearing in the last 200 years, there is still enough forest left to sequester all of Australia's carbon dioxide emissions and more. Yet, we have sufficient walking dead among us to trudge off spending trillions to destroy what was a completely good electricity system, because of those words "fossil fuels". And yet, according to the walking dead in Germany, Australia is not trudging fast enough. Bloody hypocrites! I am definitely not a CC denier. Whereas, we could be doing other things like examining, or even stopping, land clearing (at a world champion rate) for even more cattle, looking at ways to conserve water in drylands cropping soils and so on to help capture even more of our neighbour's CO2! Oops, I may have just offended someone!
"I have seen the face of G-d." Howard Beale, Network
Great article Irina. Thoughtful, well informed and articulate. Thank you.
Everything is PR now. The corporate world has been perfecting this newspeak nonsense for a long time, but now it is literally everywhere.
I’m just glad my “unchilding” phase was in the 80s and 90s where we in the west started to see how the Soviet Union used all this language policing for control. Sadly we have history again now, so everything must be controlled narrative.
"So much overcompensation, it was bound to boomerang."
Indeed, Jeff, and when you saw the wheel too hard to the left, expect a spin to the right!
The concept of creating a new reality by selecting the approved code, or buzz words, reminds me of a very true saying. With apologies to Swine, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.