Feeling Small

Having spent nearly two decades as an Arctic Engineer and a longtime pilot, my most cherished memories are sitting alone in the cockpit of our company plane during the depths of winter flying from Yellowknife en-route to various High Arctic destinations.

For several hours it was pure joy to be part of that magnificent Northern Lights show dancing across the windshield as it performed an endless ballet from horizon to horizon, reflecting off the low unbroken stratus cloud sheets below.

Once you have touched the hem of all that is and have come to that realisation, it permanently changes your life.

I’ve had enough of the cold for a lifetime tho, and now choose to live in the comparative warmth of Victoria. But I do miss the Arctic in the compromise.

Thx for this beautiful reminder, Maciej Winiarczyk:

Click here> Northern Lights

-the old man

Andrew and John – Strange Bedfellows

Andrew and John – Strange Bedfellows

In our History of BC in the making, I’m not sure what to make of the Coalition King Maker, Andrew Weaver.  One of my Green leaning friends of UK descent worked tirelessly for the Greens and Andrew during the election, and she only had good things to say. We have had numerous discussions on relative scale and context about the whole climate change cause and effects, but our friendship supersedes all of that. Our backgrounds are very different, but we get along well. She has some valid points, as do I. We both know that we are skipping the tops of the waves in an ocean that has far more depth than we can ever comprehend or arrogantly declare certainty about outcomes.

Today I ran across this tidbit regarding the full-on pettiness of tiny mean spirited people like Michael (hockey stick) Mann who brought forward a SLAPP suit in BC’s Courts against Tim Ball. The article meandered from Ho-hum to the part where an alter ego of Andrew ‘Bob and Weave’ seems to have shown up in the middle of the same story.

Here’s the full link

Here are some setup tidbits from the article:

“In his books, articles, radio and television appearances, Dr. Ball has been resolute in his generation-long war against those who corrupted the field of science to which he had selflessly dedicated his life. Now aged 79, Ball is on the cusp of utter vindication. Despite the stresses and strains on himself and his family, Tim has stood at the forefront of those scientists demanding more openness and transparency from government-funded researchers.”

As Ball explains:

“We believe he [Mann] withheld on the basis of a US court ruling that it was all his intellectual property. This ruling was made despite the fact the US taxpayer paid for the research and the research results were used as the basis of literally earth-shattering policies on energy and environment. The problem for him is that the Canadian court holds that you cannot withhold documents that are central to your charge of defamation regardless of the US ruling.”

Then this Weaver bombshell plops off the page:

“The second defamation lawsuit involves Andrew Weaver and is scheduled for court in October 2017. We are not sure what will happen as Weaver, who was a lead author for the computer model chapter of four IPCC Reports (1995, 2001, 2007, and 2013), became a politician. He ran for and was elected leader of the British Columbia Green Party and is a sitting member of the provincial legislature. We must continue to prepare for the trial, but it is the prevailing view in the court system that if a scientist becomes a politician their scientific objectivity is compromised – it is considered the bias of a ’noble cause’.”

The Question …

So here’s my question: Will the real Andrew Weaver please stand up? Will it be the Competent Applied Mathematics nice guy his supporters thought they knew, or some overbearing narcissist of the “We’ll chase you ‘till you’re broke” SLAPP Climate Show he and Mike (USA) Mann have underway against poor old Tim Ball, the nice Canadian from Winnipeg?

The newly minted politician Weaver will have to stand up in the Legislature for all of us to evaluate. We’ll have to be watching to see who shows up: the nice guy that my friend worked so hard to elect, or the arrogant self-serving ego out to destroy anyone who might disagree or fail to fall in line.

On the other hand, John the happy new co-Premier seems to be a pragmatic guy, born of humble origins like myself, able to comfortably sit in a pub or a castle and commiserate with anyone.

I’m not so sure about the Weaver tho. Personally, I’ve found that Academic Tenure makes an otherwise reasonable soul somewhat unbearable and disconnected from the realities of the flock. I suppose tho, every rule can have exceptions.

Finally …

Is it just me, or do the coalition Andrew – John crew seem to be strange bedfellows smiling and waving at us from the bridge of the shiny new government ship of state as it pulls slowly away from the dock?

And more to the point, as the old sea shanty goes, which of them is the cabin boy?

Follow Up:

BREAKING NEWS (2018  Feb 13th, WUWT): Tim Ball’s free-speech victory over Andrew Weaver – all charges dismissed 

The back story here 

-the old man