Doc Stevens

Tondeleo: When I talked with Doc about global warming in the last post, he continued talking about it in some ways that actually impressed me. He is uneducated, but definitely not stupid. Most of him and his friends are the same way. They are not fully engaged with the English language, but all of them are fairly competent at being inventive, repairing broken rubbish and sometimes at seeing through the hype that our media tells us.

In the conversation about global warming, Doc talked about a programme that he and Marilyn watched over at Big Dave's house. Big Dave actually has satellite TV. There is no cable out where they live.

Doc: OK, Tondy, about this global warmin' they keep promisin' but cain't deliver. This dude on TV was cryin' about the north pole meltin' because the temperature was now 2 degrees higher than it was a few years ago. All them scientists was wringing they's hands and sayin' the north pole will melt if it stays 2 degrees hotter. Then they showed a picture of a polar bear on a ice flow an' said it was floatin' out to sea and would drown when the ice melted!

Tondeleo: Well, Doc, that IS a problem! I have seen those pictures of polar bears being carried out to sea as the ice melts. It's horrid!

Doc: Tondy, you ain't know nothin' either! Polar bears has always floated out to sea to catch fish! If the whole place was frozen they would starve! When I was in school they showed us pictures of ice flows, an' they had polar bears on 'em back then! They float out there, and look in the water for fish! Then they dive into the water and catch 'em! They has always done that! It ain't nothin' new! They got more polar bears nowdays than ever! Marilyn read that on the interweb.

Tondeleo: But there is a grave danger if the temperature goes up two degrees, you must admit...

Doc: NO! Ain't no danger. If that North Pole is minus 10 degrees and it warms up to minus 8 degrees, ain't nothin' gonna melt! Two degrees ain't mean nothin' except wherever it is always 32 degrees (f). Then if that place goes up 2 degrees stuff'll melt. But anyplace it is like 28 degrees and it goes up to 30, ain't nothin' happenin!

Every where else in the world, two degrees hotter means longer growin' seasons and that means more food and Lord knows we need more food! More food for animals and more food for people. So, I am votin' for global warmin' for it to get 2 degrees warmer and so is Marilyn.

Tondeleo: We are having the coldest weather and the most snow here in the U.K. that I can ever remember. Many of our roads are still covered with ice, because the councils don't own snow removal equipment, and we have no way of clearing the roads. Of course, we don't have any reason to buy snow removal equipment, because it would just raise the taxes so we can have snow plows sitting for years at a time, in case it ever snows like this again. We are out of salt and have had to bring in sand and grit from the beaches to try to make the motorways safe.

I telephoned Doc and Marilyn to find how they are getting on. Doc answered. I told him about our weather here, and asked about the weather there in the Washington area. He said it was COLD, and that most people can't heat their homes enough to stay warm. Then he went on a rant about global warming. Here is Part One.

Doc: OK Tondy, me an' Marilyn an' most our friends is freezin' out here. We had three weeks of rain afore all this cold weather, so we burnt up all our dry wood then. After that it turned cold an' most our wood is wet. We got kerosene heaters, but guess what they done to the price of kerosene? They jacked it up!

Listen. Kerosene aint nothin' but diesel what ain't so purified. It should be the cheapest. But no. They jacked up the price of diesel to more than premium gas (petrol) and jacked up kerosene a dollar a gallon more than diesel!

Last week, I sent my neighbor's boy up the road to get us some kerosene to at least keep the worst of the cold out. He took five gas cans and came back with only three of 'em full. He said I ain't give him enough money an' he handed me the receipt.

Guess how much it was a gallon? Kerosene was $3.99 a gallon, Tondy! Diesel was only $2.69 a gallon but the boy didn't know I could burn that, too. A dollar thirty a gallon more for kerosene than diesel! And diesel got road taxes already added into it, about a dollar ten a gallon of road tax! Kerosene ain't got no road tax, so it ought to be priced like this: Put it back to the price of diesel and then take off the price what is road taxes and that would give a fair price for kerosene which is about $1.40 a gallon.

Why is they doing this? Cause poor folks have to heat they's homes with kerosene and they know we gotta have it. Most us ain't got the credit to be buyin' it from the oil company in a truck where you get 275 gallons at a time. We can only buy it a few gallons at a time and they put it to us. Ain't right!

Now what I want to know is this: Where's all this global warming I hear so much about? We could use some of that around here and you could use some of it over there in that England. It ain't gettin' no warmer! It's gettin' colder!

The gov'ment is tryin' to keep people scared and tax us more so they can keep takin' our money an' holdin' us down. They even met over there at that Coping Hoggin' (Copenhagen) to talk about how to get all them govments together to charge people more taxes for heating they's homes and drivin' to work. I hope they all freeze they's butts off an' that everyone finds out that they's tryin' to control us an' take our money.

Global warmin' ain't happenin'. Not til Summer, anyway.