Putting Out The Garbage

For two minutes yesterday I was exposed to wildfire smoke while putting out the garbage. My eyes got so scratchy I kept them closed during the National News, where I heard what I had already seen firsthand: our air quality yesterday was abysmal, maybe the worst in the world. 

Some of the stink sneaked across the border without a visa. Today the neighbours objected. (Republicans Blast Canada Over Wildfire Smoke:  CBC News, July 16, 2026.)

My reflex reaction is to shout back that it's a real consequence of climate change, which is not a hoax, stupid.

My considered reaction is that we all have a problem to which we are all contributing, Uncle Sam more than most. And that's not a hoax. It's data.

Wildfire damage is global, not just Canadian.
(Real Time Wildfires)

Wildfires in Canada are on the increase (Fire History: Government of Canada)

Greenhouse gas emissions are creating the conditions for the increasing wildfire damage, and the warming of the north is more rapid than the global average. (Climate Change and Wildland Fire: Government of Canada)

The USA is responsible for 11.25% of global greenhouse gas emissions while Canada's contribution is only 1.41%. (GHG Emissions By Country: World Population Review)

Finally, a confession: I voted for a liberal government because Mark Carnie had a record of taking climate change seriously. Yet he is delivering policy compromise that delays reducing GHG emissions to an indefinite future. (Carnie's Climate Agenda: CBC News, Aaron Wherry, June 20, 2026)

Of course, Mark may be smarter than I, whose only occupation is putting out the garbage. We will reconsider this in four years if the USA permits us to manage our own affairs and Canada still exists in 2030. 

If I'm not here, it's up to you. If you aren't here, then who cares? Maybe the grandkids?

*****************

Just Stop Burning Fossil Fuels: Inayat Singh, CBC News, July 18, 2026

The Energy Transition Phase Two: Just Have A Think

Some Like It Hot

Yes, but
32°C is more than enough
even for daisies.

We just took a walk around the block, pausing whenever we found shade under a tree. The daisies are stuck in the sun. Must give them a drink.

Lucky us, compared to those enduring an Omega Heat Wave in Europe last week with temperatures reaching above 40°C.

It's our fault, we Homo kaputiens. We have evolved with a will to thrive that erodes the conditions supporting life even for daisies. We have known this was happening for decades but we did it anyway because our collective will expressed in business and government prioritizes here and now. Elsewhere and later is somebody else's problem... until elsewhere is here and later has arrived, and we are dealing with the accumulated deferred cost of past human excesses. Our preferred solution, according to most business and some governments, is much more of the same. Never mind the daisies.

If instinct wins over intelligence, we are kaput. Let's pretend to be intelligent.

I know. We aren't very good at it.
Daisies may do better when we are gone.

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Heat Dome. How to Stay Safe: CBC News, June 30, 2026

America's Climate Warning System: Just Have a Think, June 28, 2026

Alberta's Pipeline Proposal: CBC News, June 30, 2026

Energy Innovation in Alberta: CBC News, June 25, 2026

Canada's Energy Future: Prime Minister Mark Carnie, June 30, 2026

"Nobody's Perfect", The making of 'Some Like It Hot': Youtube. (Just for fun)

No Joke From Dad

It's Fathers' Day. I should have something profound to say to the kids. So when I awoke and squinted at the clock, which said "8:30 lazybones, things to be doing", I got up and dressed quickly. When I made it to the kitchen and looked closer at the clock, it said 6:30. The joke's on Dad. Anyway, now there is time to write this note. No joke.

What wisdom shall I write for the kids?

'Meaning' is one of those polysemic words (having more than one meaning). I raise this point because one day, while it was raining and I was not in the garden, I found an essay about the meaning of life that was quite moving and also quite ambiguous because the author never made it clear what he meant by 'meaning'.

So I went browsing about the meaning of life. Be careful here, kids. If you ask Google about the meaning of life, your life will be over before you finish reading. One essay I found suggested that 'meaning' was looking backward whereas 'purpose' looks forward. Yes, but ...

if you have wasted some of your life reading what I have written on the subject, you have met other dimensions of meaning, such as...

the meaning of life is that we work out the meaning of life.

It isn't raining. The garden is calling. Come. We might discover meaning there.

If you would rather read my nonsense than dig the garden, just go to any of the following blogs and type meaning into the search bar. On a cell phone, there may be no search bar, so you have to read the whole archive to get my meaning, but it's up to you after all. 

I mean the meaning of life is up to you. 

No joke.

Notes That Missed the Basket

More Notes That Missed

Still Missing The Basket

The Basket Overflow

Words Gather Here

Teaching The Teacher

It was in Grade 5 that I discovered the pleasures of teaching the teacher. With my superior musical knowledge, I knew that Mr. Bolin had made a mistake while teaching us a new song. Fun teaching the teacher. He wasn't as pleased as I.

When I became a teacher I let my students know that yes, I was sometimes wrong, but trying to prove me wrong they would ignore what I got right and end up ignorant.

Now older and wiser, I take a break from yes-butting to give credit to thoughts that have some merit.

Check out what these teachers said.

10 Religious Ideas We No Longer Need To Believe: Deconstructionology by Jim Palmer

Climate Targets Missed--What Happens Now: Just Have A Think, Dave Borlace, June 14, 2026

The Psychological Pull of Authoritarianism and Autocracy: Psychology Today, The Group For Advancement of Psychiatry

Confessions of a Yes-But Junkie

During the cold months past, I have been lurking for free on Substack.com, exploring information and opinions about anything and everything (science, climate, economics, philosophy, politics, religion...), and leaving clever comments to set things straight, yes-butting ignorance toward enlightenment. 

Yesterday I read The Church Paul Described Terrifies Modern Pastors with a quote from First Corinthians 14: “When you come together, each one has a hymn, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation.”  

Interesting. Church with no pastor, everyone bringing what they can for the benefit of the group.

Yes, I see the genius of that, worshipers as participants rather than audience. Reminds me of God as Holy Spirit rather than law giver and judge. But how would this distributed divinity work in a large congregation? 

OK, anybody who has something inspiring to tell us, line up at the microphone. And speak up when it's your turn.

Someone has to give the orders, and the rest of us have to follow their lead. And somebody has to shut down the nutter who interrupts the other speakers with a "yes-but" argument. 

Pastor: Just listen. You can talk when it's your turn.

Yes, like God silenced Paul until he changed his mind about Jesus. But that stroke was probably brought on by his rages about the Jesus cult. Stupid to get so worked up about other people's beliefs.

To explore that thought further, I searched Substack for 'stupid' and found Bonhoeffer's Theory of Stupidity, We Have More To Fear From Stupid People Than From Evil Ones.

Interesting. I thought about yes-butting that one with a clever comment like:

yes stupid is dangerous, but stupid plus evil would be worse and clever plus evil would be as bad as it gets. 

I was going to illustrate that thesis with examples and body count statistics, but something stopped me from publishing. Funny thing about yes-butting, nobody likes a wise guy. Sometimes a wise guy should keep quiet and yes-but himself.

Yes, Substack has been rekindling the teacher in me, but not your favourite teacher. 

Yes, I thought I had retired from teaching, but it feels like I'm still in school, sometimes teaching and sometimes being taught. 

Yes, I know, it's stupid to waste time in a yes-but rut, arguing with faceless phantoms on Substack. But I needed something to do when the snow was on the ground. Sorry if I sounded critical.

Enough of that. I deleted my Substack account. I'm going to go dig the garden.

****************

Physical activity helped a bit. For the past hour, I yes-butted along the fence while the shovel did it's thing. Yes, I scattered a mix of flower seed into the dirt. And (not but) maybe something nice will come of that.

Socrates had it right when he said the wise man knows he is a fool. So today there are two of me here setting each other straight on a lovely spring day while we finish this note. 

Now that we have confessed our stupidity, what do we say to a nap? Yes?

zzzz ZZZZZZZ 

zzzzzzz zzzzzzzzz

****************

Awake once more, I searched "wise fool". Yes, the sense of the quotation is what I intended, but I need to correct a misattribution. The wise-fool saying is from "As You Like It", Act V, scene 1, words spoken by Touchstone: "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." As for Socrates', his thought on the matter is rendered as "I know only one thing, that I know nothing."

As for me, now I know that I got the quote wrong.

CaterFly

Somewhere between caterpillar and butterfly there is a pupa (caterfly?) undergoing remarkable transformation.

"Within the chrysalis, the caterpillar’s tissues undergo histolysis, a process of controlled self-digestion. Most of the larval cells break down into a nutrient-rich soup, while the imaginal discs and certain other groups of cells survive. These surviving cells then use the available nutrients to construct entirely new tissues and organs. The caterpillar’s body is reorganized into that of an adult butterfly—complete with wings, compound eyes, proboscis, and reproductive organs." (Science News Today)

That must have happened to produce the white butterfly we saw yesterday, first of the season, identical to all those white butterflies we saw last year.

What happens in a chrysalis is a striking analogy for this chapter of the planetary story. We find the biosphere, including human affairs, collapsing in many ways: biodiversity, climate, global and national politics, energy supply, the economy, food security, religion, relationships, health, fertility. What if this is the chrysalis from which Earth may emerge as something beautifully new with or without people? What if the human obsession with consumption and growth has been our larval stage, and as emerging adults we have other concerns, an evolving worldview.

A metaphor gets us thinking, but is never exact. Once it has our attention, we learn much from how it doesn't fit. For a particular species, what emerges from the chrysalis is almost always the same. If it fails to repeat the inherited plan, the butterfly probably doesn't survive. Very occasionally, a mutation turns out to be useful, and will be passed on to progeny.

In the human realm, we have history to lead us into the future, but it is a future unlike anything in history. If we faithfully replicate what the ancestors have done (including war, exploitation, extraction, extermination, pollution), we race to the sixth mass extinction. Fortunately we are equipped with a tool that the butterflies lack. We have imagination.

We either reinvent what it is to be human, or the world will evolve without us.

***************

New Climate Research Warns of Faster Warming: Just Have A Think

A Question Of Margin: Bill McKibben

An Attractor Nobody Sees: How civilizational dissolution reorganizes itself: Richard David Hames

Taraxacology

the study of Taraxacum officionale, also known as blowball, cankerwort, doon-head-clock, witch's gowan, milk witch, lion's-tooth, yellow-gowan, Irish daisy, monks-head, priest's-crown, puff-ball, faceclock, pee-a-bed, wet-a-bed, swine's snout, white endive, wild endive, and dandelion. We have this ology about Taraxacum because there is much to know such as this plant's use as food and medicine, the aerodynamics of wind dispersal of seeds and reproduction by apomixis. Curious yet? You can read about it >> here <<.


Taraxacum officionale

Taraxacology is on my mind because this year I have already spent hours digging Taraxacums out of the lawn. If you let one grow, it produces so much seed that your yard will soon be fully entaraxacumbered.

On the plus side, my back is getting stronger. That and the pretty yellow flowers are free. That and the fun of blowing away the seedheads in June. That and the tap-rooted persistent greenery they provide during summer drought. They are vigorous, resilient, tolerant of heat, cold, full sun, shade, and mowing. What's not to love?

The Dandelion Strategy For Regenerating The Earth: The Earth Regenerators use dandelion seed dispersal as a metaphor for the rapid spread of an emerging ecology paradigm following the coming collapse of the biosphere. It may only take a few people with regenerative ideas to seed a rapidly growing sustainable culture amidst the chaos. Shall we be dandelions?

Sea Level Rise: The Universe, The World And Us, a video explaining one consequence of climate change.

Sustainable Communities: The David Suzuki Foundation

Regenerative Practices Breathe New Life Into Forests: David Suzuki and Rachel Plotkin

Mark Carney Wades Into The Deep Waters Of Environmental Regulation: CBC News, May 13, 2026