This is no lightweight sickness. I have become aware of several of my friends that came down with a prolonged nagging sickness this winter, went to the doctor, and tested negative for the flu. So just what did they have?
Here, in central PA we have Penn State, and after winter break a large influx of students living abroad came back from home. It was late January and February that the “flu” really hit around here. I never missed a workout (I have this stupid idea that if I do not give in to a sickness, it can’t beat me. Stems from my attitude that days off lead to off days). But I was dragging and each morning was challenged to get thru my videos without hacking and having to start over. At 64, I chalked it up to being older and not being able to recover. Something nailed my daughter Jessie 2 days before a gymnastics meet and I had never seen her that sick. Yet, and I think this was a miracle, she still went on and produced a 9.8 on balance beam. My son had the worst cold of his life were we had 14 days of wondering what is going on. It hit his whole Jr High and HS basketball team (he is a coach) and one of the State College middle schools had to close with 600 kids out in one day! For 3 days, I had never seen my wife as sick as she was. In my family usually 1 or 2 people get a minor bout each flu season, but this year was different, I am becoming aware that we were not the only ones.
Was it Covid-19? I don’t know, but when antibody testing comes out where I am not jamming up the medical system, I am going to get one. I suspect that there are many times more people that have had this, which changes ideas on how to fight it.
But here is the point, I can see the next huge battle from the left building because they are going to try to piggy back the climate effects with the desperation of this urgent issue. Facts on human life improving so dramatically in the age of fossil fuels matter not. The fact that CO2 has just broken an hourly record for all time record high (near 420 ppm) despite the shutdown caused by Covid-19, (while true harmful pollutants dropped) means that arguments about this being one of the ways to stop man made climate change have to be questioned. If one wants to argue “ lag” I am open to that, but then we should see a bigger drop off than average in the green season. This, which in spite of the record cold coming into the east yet again, as so often happens naturally when its cold in one place its warm in others, so the west is frying. Which leads to another point which is about what is going on in California.
In the years of the greatest generation our TROOPS stormed beaches in faraway places to defend our way of life. Just what is our way of life? I sum it up with “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Here we are so many decades later and we have people storming the beaches in California from the opposite direction simply because they want that way of life that our true warriors fought for. I am not against recommendations from people in power, strong recommendations. But dictating to people, threatening to arrest people (how crazy is that, letting people out of jail, and replacing them with a conditional law breaker, based on what someone above thinks. But then again when you see what happened to general Flynn, you realize what can happen in other things.)
But think about that. Do you see what “perspective” I am talking about? You have a hideous disease, I make no bones about that, but as information is revealed we are seeing the ways to fight this. The problem is that we have evolved to a society that pays no attention to the old Italian adage (I have and Italian heritage after all and am getting old): “No Solo rischiando tu vivrai” translated : “only by risking will you live” (note: listen to Andrea Bocelli’s love song to God, Un Nuovo Giorno). But it comes down to this, without risking there is a limit on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In addition, the song title means “It’s a new day”. You see, we start every day understanding what we have. Our stuff. Once we get our stuff, we own it. Its ours. So you own it, but it then owns you. It can weigh down your thinking so much you will exchange freedom for safety. Yet people that wish to control others are well aware of that. So what is going to be the natural pivot from the current real crisis we are in? One that I do believe looking to the latest data and with being smart we can still pull out ahead to the other pressing “disaster” of our time, man-made climate change.
Quite frankly the American people with both issues are faced with a choice. What is the acceptable risk for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Does one want to outsource their own ideas and beliefs to a group of people that offers supposed safety over freedom? There is a large amount of people that are invested in the latter.
You look at the Drudge report and you are hard pressed to find anything positive. Fear and safety sells. Seriously, if you are a large company interested in making a profit, you go to what sells. How can you not? It’s like the person that has their whole life invested in man-made climate change. Why won’t they stop to think about the chance that the CO2 increase in a product of naturally warmed oceans is outsourcing it? You think an Al Gore or John Kerry is looking at the Keeling curve of CO2, and wondering, “Hey, I wonder why this is not slowing down”? If there is an interesting bone being thrown skeptics on the cause and effect of all this, its that if there is no response. (Keep in mind we are talking parts per million here, so there should be some indication even if there is a lag.) Then we must acknowledge that the economic shut down that is being touted as a way to stop man-made climate change indeed needs to be questioned. As since the number one devil, CO2’ has not batted an eyelash, even if it is .5 PPM lower than last year and it’s given the seasonal drop due to greening. That is not too much to ask given about 25% of the year had the economic slowdown.
BTW the hint in how to make this all a moot point is a massive global tree planting initiative (more nuclear power and carbon capture would add to it). This would be far less limiting to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to actually show voters concerned about climate change that there is a reasonable response. It would take the whole CO2 question off the table where we could really witness the cause of rise and warming. I suspect though, this would take a way a big cottage industry built around letting people know how bad things are.
But people are going to have a choice. Those men and women of the greatest generation answered the question that they loved freedom more than safety. They are part of the reason we are who we are today, have advanced so far and have so much that we own, that it now owns us. So the question is, which do we cherish most? The chance for freedom or supposed safety?
Ronald Reagan said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction”. With each passing day his words carry more weight.