I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.
–Nelson Mandela
Fear is a reaction; courage is a decision.
–Winston Churchill
Sometimes beginning an essay is the most difficult part. My English teachers advised making outlines, but I’m a writing nonconformist and this never worked for me. My fifth-grade teacher was asked several years ago if she thought I would ever amount to anything, and she tersely replied, “No.”
The world is complicated; at least it is for me. I wonder if those queried in “man on the street interviews” are similarly flummoxed by life. So often they seem brain-dead. Granted, TV producers often showcase the misinformed or clueless. I could answer questions related to science, medicine, politics and a host of other subjects, but I would be clueless regarding pop culture.
Perhaps I would be happier if I were unaware of world and national events. To paraphrase the wisdom of Scripture, we should be in the world, but not of the world. We do not have a choice in the first part of that admonition, but we do have a choice in the latter. Becky and I have some dear friends who are not of the world. However, after prayerful consideration, I believe my purpose is to remain engaged, even if it causes suffering. Jesus once said, “To whom much is given, much is expected,” (Luke 12:48).
Some weeks ago, I wrote about the push for DEI or diversity, equity and inclusion in business, and government. Iconoclasts like me believe such policies will cause businesses to die from such progressive, woke claptrap. I cite as examples the problems of Disney and Coke, as well as Facebook’s $250 billion decline in value this year. The latest destructive acronym promoted by the globalist Klaus Schwab (see my essay April 5, 2022) and the World Economic Forum is ESG. This stands for economic social governance.
Apparently, elites believe they can produce a better civilization, run from the top down, with them in control. A poster child of this lunacy is John Kerry, but there are so many more. The “green movement” is a central aspect of ESG and is causing worldwide damage.
A series of international disasters demonstrate my point regarding ESG. Germany is experiencing an energy crisis after embracing the green movement. And their politicians even shut down three nuclear reactors at a time Russia is turning off their natural gas supply for “maintenance work” on Nord Stream 1. Protests are erupting in Holland because of government restrictions on fertilizer chemicals which farmers say will severely damage food production. And you may have heard of the economic disaster in Ghana and the revolution in Sri Lanka. These occurred after Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum coerced them into using organic rather than chemical fertilizer. The pinheads predicted that such green ESG policies would make Sri Lanka an economic powerhouse by 2025. Instead, it caused one third of the farms to collapse leading to famine, economic ruin and revolution.
Several years ago, I read a fascinating book by Thomas Hager entitled The Alchemy of Air. I was especially intrigued by the title. Alchemy is a “Medieval chemical science and speculative philosophy aiming to achieve transmutation of base metals into gold” (Webster). Unknown to Medieval alchemists, chemical reactions work by the exchange of electrons between various elements. Iron oxide or rust is an example. To change a substance like iron into gold requires changing the number of protons within the nucleus. Such nuclear chemistry would not be possible until the 20th century.
Nitrogen is one of the most prevalent elements in the universe and on earth. Seventy-eight percent of our atmosphere is nitrogen and it is a component of DNA, proteins and all living things.
Gardeners and farmers know that fertilizer has three variable components, listed on the label as three numbers. For example, the popular Miracle-Gro All Purpose Plant Food is labeled 24-8-16. The first number (24) is the nitrogen component which is a combination of ammonium (NH3) and urea nitrogen. The second number (8) is the phosphate percentage (P2O5) and third (16) is potash or potassium oxide. Nitrogen promotes green growth, and a high concentration is selected to build the plant. Later, one might add a different fertilizer with a higher concentration of potassium to promote, for instance, fruiting.
For thousands of years urea from animal waste was used to fertilize plants. With increasing population, ever more fertilizer was needed. The logical solution was to extract nitrogen from the air. Unfortunately, nitrogen exists as two nitrogen atoms bound tightly together and resist being split apart and usable.
The solution for more fertilizer came from two German chemists in the early 1900s who developed the Haber-Bosch process to extract nitrogen from the air and convert it to usable ammonium for fertilizer. More fertilizer allows more food production. This poses a problem for “Green” Activists who claim increased food production and animal husbandry damage the environment and contribute to greenhouse gasses.
So, we are left with a choice. We “save the planet” and starve or use human ingenuity and prosper. Elites like Klaus Schwab, John Kerry or our narcissistic Congressmen believe they will be fine in the “new order.” The rest of us, the proletariat, are expendable fodder for their socialist machinations. And don’t count on ole Joe having enough left to understand one wit of what his handlers are doing. But then I may be cutting him too much slack. He’s been an elite grifter all his political life.
It is important to become informed and it then takes courage to push back against the lunacy of the Green Activists or the evil displayed by abortion activist Sarah Lopez. She testified before the Congressional House Oversight Committee saying “My abortion was the best decision I ever made. It was an act of self-love.” Ghoulish.
My admonition is, “Read widely, think carefully and use common sense.” You can be respectful yet push back by saying, “I don’t accept your premise” when you encounter delusional thinking of Green Activists, those who maintain men can get pregnant or encounter evil in the form of a gleeful Sarah Lopez. We must be courageous. “You must stand for something or you’ll believe in anything” (Chesterton).
