This old story is here as a break from the serious stuff. It’s a dog story. You’ve been warned. The photo is Gretchen with Bowser.

By Karl Groszkruger

Bowser was our first dog. Since we got her before I was born, she was our dog in my early childhood. My brother is 15. He and Bowser were born on the same day. She lived to be 12 years old. I can remember some things she did while she lived with us. I remember she always used to go away from the house to go to the bathroom. One day when we were processing pigs, my sister Gretchen, was carrying little baby pigs to mom so she could castrate them, cut off their tails and teeth, and give them a shot of iron. The pigs were screaming and the mother pig was very protective and she knocked Gretchen down on the pavement and was literally on top of her. All of us stood there dumbfounded except for Bowser. She jumped over a four-foot high fence and jumped up on top of the 400 pound sow and sunk her teeth into the back of the sow’s neck. The sow screamed in pain and retreated.

Then one day, at the beginning of winter, she became short of breath and she would not lie down. We took her to the vet and he found cancer. Attached to her spleen was a softball sized tumor. We decided to have it removed. Mom was there when they opened her up and found the tumor. She told them to take it out. As the vet was removing it, she went into shock. She lost a lot of blood. When she went into shock, the vet told my mom to leave because she wasn’t going to make it. Mom insisted on staying there to the end. She went to Bowser’s head and started petting her and talking to her. “Come on girl, hang on.” She made it through. But the cancer was too bad and she died on the morning of December 5, 1992, a year after her surgery.

The day she died, I woke up to go to the bathroom where Bowser slept. It was about 7:00 in the morning. I went back to bed and woke up about 8:30 and dad found her dead about 7:30. I had been the last one to see her alive. We buried her south of the house under the elm and ash trees. Her grave is marked with a cross we made. I loved her very much.

Some who have a life besides wondering why about everything, might wonder what “virtue signaling” is when they read this. It is an important pair of words when put into the context of people caring about the world around them, the environment, and the well-being of their fellow man.

Journalist Siddharth Kara dare not carry a camera. The mining company and state armed guards in the Democratic Republic of Congo have a poorly kept secret. It’s artisanal mining. (It’s not like expensive crusty bread and tangy cheese.)

Some with picks and shovels and some with bare hands, it’s a family affair, from little children to grandma and grandpa finding cobalt for EVs (electric vehicles). Three fourths of the world’s cobalt comes from the Congo. With 10% of auto sales now EVs, cobalt demand has increased a whopping 70 times. That has increased the use of cobalt enough that mechanical means can’t keep up. Imagine the conundrum the holier-than-thou autocrats face in going totally fossil fuel free when they are the greatest battery of all. Fossil fuels have been storing solar energy naturally for centuries.

EVs are purported to be a large part of a transition away from the fossil fuels that enable human life on Earth even though only 29% of fossil fuel usage goes for transportation. Cars are highly visible so those EVs inflate self esteem.

Look at the rich and powerful. Fossil fuels power their private jets to take these superior human beings to Davos, Switzerland, and the World Economic Forum where they can plan a more pristine existence for the rest of us. People actually concerned about climate change would choose to have meetings online, right?

The people on the private jets will be found out eventually, change their minds, and proclaim the earth is dangerously cooling instead. That will enrich the bank accounts of their mansion dwelling friends when the industries in which they bought stock become popular solutions to the newly imagined problem.

I’ve had friends who called our country’s founding documents evil because 250 years ago the authors owned slaves. They use this as a way to declare the contents of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution untenable.

As long as we’ve mentioned stock ownership we should delve into the situation in the Congo. Does an EV owner have some responsibility as far as issues surrounding acquisition of materials used in their cars?

Oil spills ultimately drive up the cost of fossil fuels as the industry accumulates expenses in restoring damaged areas to their natural state.

In the case of EVs the damage is slavery. How do EV manufacturers compensate thousands for time and health lost to their time in the dust and blazing sun? There are two reasons the cobalt mines have armed guards everywhere. One is to keep cameras from exposing the horrific conditions. The other is to keep the slaves from running away.

There are cobalt mines operated with machinery. And these would be enough if lithium batteries only powered phones and flashlights. But a 1,000 pound battery in an EV ups the game considerably (besides making an EV more deadly in a crash).

Basically, the people pushing for the elimination of fossil fuels are at least as guilty of owning slaves as those dastardly Founding Fathers who designed the most prosperous economy on Earth. The ones who own electric cars as a statement of righteousness are either ignorant or despicable in their virtue signaling.

I have readers who question my skepticism of government action to ameliorate climate change. Unbelievable, eh?

The reason I’ve arrived here is that more and more misdirected business decisions are taking funds from worthwhile endeavors and being used to line the pockets of lobbyists or their bosses.

“The fine dust that man constantly puts into the atmosphere by fossil fuel burning could screen out so much sunlight that the average temperature could drop by six degrees.” Dr. S.I. Rasool of NASA and Columbia University went on to predict in 1971… “Such a temperature decrease could be sufficient to trigger an ice age.”

An ice age is indeed a terrifying prospect. While raising a garden in northwestern Montana, we had a killing frost in July and August. I’ve had a tiny taste of it.

We have had cold periods in human history igniting hellacious disasters of famine, disease, war, and even widespread cannibalism. The predictions of warming are welcome in comparison, even one published on Propublica that was sent to me by a friend several years ago. That prediction included the southern states as being uninhabitable. A population shift northward would find open country and vast expanses of land previously underutilized because of a short growing season. A potential escape from a climate disaster is within reason.

“A population shift” should stand out as a solution if there is significant warming. Like my dad said, “Fly across this country and you will see the folly of thinking a few little exhaust pipes can change the weather.” Take a second and compare a balance sheet; change the weather or move. Even while ignoring cost, as is the norm with many of these highfalutin goals (mostly political campaign promises), are not attainable.

To justify these plainly feeble attempts NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) routinely “adjusts” past data using complex statistical models. A look at those adjustments over the past 100 years shows the earlier years adjusted downward and more recent years adjusted up in order to fabricate a warming trend.

Evidence of human-caused global warming is still circumstantial and data show warmer periods during times when human influences could not be a factor.

In order to avoid a civil dialog about climate change, some proponents say “he doesn’t believe in global warming” or “he’s a denier” trying to associate climate skepticism with religious heretics or a holocaust denier for crying out loud.

It is about time we ask who benefits from the reaction to the global warming theory. If you hate big business it is time to join the “deniers.” Climate change is the epitome of big business exploiting mass hysteria through stealth totalitarianism. It is not kind and generous, it is sociopathic greed.