Author: R J Adams

The future truly does bode ill for us all. As though to mock our disregard for climate change, fate this week delivered us – the paintings of George W Bush.

Most ex-world leaders cash in on their status by donning a tuxedo and smoking fat cigars in the company of similar, well-heeled, and usually well-oiled, members of the upper set.

Not for Bush the endless rounds of after-dinner speeches at $100,000 a go. No fat-salaried adviser position to a benevolent corporation for him. Instead, Bush sat comfortably at home, flicking the pages of Wikipedia for ‘official’ images he could copy onto canvas. It truly was a masterstroke, even if the maestro’s brush strokes lacked a certain…well, artistry?

Jonathan Jones, the Guardian’s art critic, recently described Bush’s work as:

…empty headed daubs [that] look the work of someone you wouldn’t trust to mow a lawn without cutting someone’s foot off.”^[1]

No doubt, in time, they’ll sell for a fortune. After all, who wouldn’t buy a painting by an ex-president of the United States? Well, apart from me, that is. Or, possibly you. Rest assured, the art world will drag out their fat wallets and checkbooks en masse for the privilege, even while quietly vomiting on the Isfahan rug at the prospect of hanging a ‘Bush’ on their wall.

Back on the subject of climate change, a leaked United Nations report is suggesting that if we’re unable to cut CO2 emissions sufficiently over the next thirty years, we could move to burning wood, rather than coal, capture the greenhouse gases emitted, and store them underground.^[2]

It’s not so much daft, as desperate. The science is simple. Trees capture CO2 from the atmosphere. If we burn trees for energy, presumably from ‘sustainable forests’, and hang onto the CO2 given off, we actually produce ‘clean energy’. It’s been advocated for years by the ‘clean coal’ brigade – otherwise known as the coal industry. Of course, the CO2 in coal was captured millions of years ago, so it’s not much help today, but in the minds of coal industry bosses it seemed like a good marketing strategy at the time.

There’s a minor problem with the whole issue. No-one has ever successfully ‘stored’ CO2 from emissions. The coal industry’s tried and failed dismally. The technology just isn’t there. And, even if we could, there has to be a limit to the amount of space available to store it in. After all, we emit three gigatons (that’s three billion tons!) of CO2 each year. Where on earth (literally) do you put it?

This whole report smacks of hopelessness, a grasping of the proverbial straw. And that’s a feeling shared by many other countries (though, admittedly, they’ve failed to come up with any better suggestions):

Government responses…

Some comments on the draft text of the forthcoming UN report:

Russia: “There are no CDR (Carbon Dioxide Removal) technologies by now. In the best case, they are pilot projects and small-scale experiments. [The idea] looks unrealistic.
UK: “[The] technologies [are] not proven and may not be available. There is a significant risk that the [summary document] misleads policy-makers into thinking that mitigation action (cutting emissions) could be delayed with little increased climate risk.
Germany: “Please indicate that CDR technologies are not currently available and would be associated with high risks and adverse side-effects.”

It may not yet be hopeless. Scientists at Yale are presently working on artificial trees…

^{Photo credit: Stonehaven Productions Inc.}

…that could each ‘mop up’ a ton of CO2 a day.^[3] (The image above is merely an artist’s impression). A mere eighty million or so of these would deal with all the CO2 humans produce yearly. I think they’re rather lovely. I’d just love a forest of these in my backyard. Perhaps planted in copses together with a couple of hundred of those bloody windmills!

And, guess what? The gas they catch still has to be stored somewhere.

Scientists really need to find a way to burn wood without producing CO2. Then our problems would be solved.

We could even begin by saving a few trees. We could burn those ghastly artworks by George W Bush.

^{[1] “George Bush’s paintings: this is the art of Forrest Gump” Guardian, April 4th 2014}

^{[2] “World ‘needs Plan B’ on climate – IPCC report” BBC, April 8th 2014}

^{[3] “‘Artificial Trees’ as a Carbon Capture Alternative to Geoengineering” Yale Climate Change Forum, February 13th 2013}

I don’t ‘tweet’. I don’t do ‘Facebook’. Wild horses wouldn’t drag me into either. Frankly, I believe Twitter is one of the most obscene forms of communication ever invented. It serves very little purpose other than as an ideal medium for cyber-bullying and a platform for that more commonly virulent of low-lifes, the cyber-critic.

These are the people who spend their time homing in on other unfortunate folk who’ve run into difficulties, and then proceed to criticize their actions – as if it were any of their business.

Take the recent case of Charlotte and Eric Kaufman. This couple and their two children set sail from the US en route to the South Seas in their 36-foot sailing yacht. On board were their two daughters, three-year-old Cora, and one-year-old, Kyra.

Kyra had just recovered from salmonella, and was passed as fit to travel by a doctor. Unfortunately, she became ill again when they were nine hundred miles off the Mexican coast. To compound the situation, the yacht developed steerage problems.

The Kaufmann’s did the exact right thing in the circumstances by asking for assistance from the US Coastguard. The California Air National Guard parachuted four rescuers onto the yacht and Kyra’s condition was stabilized. Eventually a US warship was able to attend and take the sick child to a shore-based hospital.

Sadly, for the Kaufmann’s, it would appear from reports that their boat was sunk ‘by the authorities’ because it was taking on water. This was their home. As one who lived afloat for twelve years I feel deeply sorry for them. Maybe they can find another boat and continue their journey. I do hope so.

Meanwhile, the bird brains are filling the internet with their ignorant criticisms of the Kaufmann’s way of life.

It would be very sad if this deluge of opprobrium, ‘tweeted’ from every sad bastard with a Smartphone, condemning these parents for daring to take their young children on the journey of a lifetime, caused them to give up on their trip.

I’m not sure if (anti) social-media like Twitter has created this race of sad, moronic, individuals with no life of their own, whose only sick pleasure is to express their ignorance via arrogant opinions of others they’ve never met, and know nothing about. Or, whether they’ve always existed and only surfaced with the advent of digitized communication.

I fear it is the latter.

There was a time when folk were encouraged to ‘live their dream’. Now, it seems non-conformism is to be condemned.

As one who spent many happy hours sailing small boats on the open sea I can recognize the voices of those who are totally ignorant on the subject. Inevitably, they’re the ones who whine the loudest.

If you’re one of them, my only advice to you is – GET A LIFE! And leave alone others who are making more of an effort at living their’s, than you will ever achieve with yours.

^{[1] “Stranded Family With Sick Baby Defends Rescue” NBC, April 7th 2014}

I really will have to stop watching Bill Maher if he continues to insist on booking women for his panel with voices that can only be described as resembling a recently castrated parrot choking on a walnut.

I have no idea who Carrie Sheffield is, but she’s yet another clone of last week’s, and the previous week’s – except this one is brunette and indoctrinated, rather than the usual blonde (dyed) and, of course, imbued with right-wing ideology.

Apparently, Ms Sheffield (there’s a fabulous northern town in Britain which would rapidly disown her) was educated(?) – at Brigham Young University. Do Mormons actually educate their offspring? Does she really believe Joseph Smith was a prophet? If so, is anything she says worth – anything?

She then acquired a Master’s degree in “public policy”(?) from Harvard. Obviously, Daddy was very rich.

I would suggest Ms Sheffield might bear a passing facial resemblance to Morticia Adams of “Adams Family” fame, except I could not be so cruel to the wonderful, and sadly now departed, Carolyn Jones, who played the part so adroightly for many years.

To partner Ms Sheffield on the ‘right’ of his panel, Maher chose a geriatric republican ex-politician whose name escapes me. They made a perfect match.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that while Maher’s quick-fire jokes on the sad decline of the American middle class may be well meaning, the sad fact is that those about whom they were directed are no longer in a position to pay the exorbitant fees demanded by HBO to receive their programming, thus rendering his wit worthless and redundant.

It must be noted that those who laughed the loudest were sitting on the panel. It’s likely every one of them was a millionaire, or, at least well on the way.