Wednesday, June 20, 2012

We're still here but challenges abound

By John Twigg

My goodness almost a month has passed since my last new post so I AM overdue for an update, but alas I have been preoccupied with some personal and family matters. And I notice certain other pundits have been taking downtime too.

I continue to monitor NW and all the TV newscasts plus The Sun and occasionally other papers but when I've been travelling I've desisted from updating this Blog and also from Twitter and Facebook, though I've still been receiving and sending lots of emails on notable topics, of which there are many.

Greece? Syria?? There is so much to watch and try to understand, but I do know this: British Columbia's people would be wise to ensure and increase its self-sufficiency in many many areas of policy and economics. Yes that includes food, clothing and shelter but we need more - such as having our own paper currency ready if the U.S. and Canadian dollars should suddenly fail or dry up. And having plans for social security in the event of a prolonged power outage.

I'm not saying a massive breakdown of B.C. society and economy is imminent but I will say that that is more or less inevitable, the latter happening only if millions of our citizens suddenly repented towards God and so became worthy of protection in the coming days of wrath.

The media and political fixation with global warming is a farce - it is NOT a crisis and never was but most of the false alarmists have too muchy ego invested to admit they were wrong. I posted some links to such articles on Twitter #bcpoli. But really it has been a deliberate distraction or smokescreen for much more serious and solvable problems.

Yes we should reduce pollution, get people and industries off oil (except in transportation where trucks need liquid fuels), and reduce GHG emissions (not only CO2) but simply trying to reduce all uses of all forms of carbon is simply sheer folly and nonsense - look at the minute proportions of it in the atmosphere even after the Industrial Revolution, look at the many wide variations in carbon and water in previous eons and centuries - then look at all the other problems in the present real world.

What B.C. needs is NOT merely a new approach to energy strategies but moreso a whole new approach to economic development and diversification, especially a full range of job creation initiatives (many self-financing, others saving government money in social programs) and probably a whole array of new forms of money: not just paper and metal (which we have in abundance) but also scanable (like lottery tickets) and electronic (credit card chips), and hence probably a revived central Bank of B.C. and a fleet of Treasury Branches too.

But alas very few people are daring to think along such fundamental lines, let alone talk about them.

Interestingly I`ve felt a few nibbles at my idea that Athabasca bitumen be sent by rail to Prince Rupert rather than pipeline to Kitimat, but no one has yet grabbed it and run. Perhaps it is too common-sense, and not capital-intensive enough for the big corporate investors who want to profiteer from what could become a monopoly pipeline (which is why the Chinese are investors too).

I also got some traction and a new hook for my idea that a new ferry crossing be developed between the Iona sewage outfall near Vancouver`s airport to Gabriola Island and a new bridge hop to the big island, designed for trucks and foot-passengers commuting to the airport and downtown via nearby SkyTrain. But the new hook is a brilliant idea: use the sewage that happens to be nearby in renewable abundance to generate energy for the ferries! It`s brilliant because MetroVancouver will soon have to spend billions of dollars to mitigate that growing pollution anyway! (The impacts on Gabriola citizens can be mitigated to whatever extent they wish, such as is done now at Duke Point and Yellowpoint.)

There`s more where that came from but meanwhile I must focus on some more basic exigencies.

But don`t you think that in a world producing Magnottas and with a war looming between Europe and Islam that we should be battening down our own hatches here in Beautiful B.C. ?

To get a better idea of what`s really going on out there, check out the massive conspiracy theory alleged by the Abel Danger group, a little taste of which can be had here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YGGIPFoR9M

Have a happy summer eh! And let`s all try to save our Province too.

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