photo #9355985

For years now, we have been told the same story on a loop. The climate is going to destroy the planet. The oceans will swallow the coasts. The deadline was always just around the corner, and the doom was always certain.So we complied.We were told to give up gas vehicles for electric ones. We were told to rip out natural gas heaters and water heaters. We were told to build our grid on solar and wind, then told to use less electricity, even as they demand we plug everything we own into that same grid.We were told to eat bugs, because cows are a threat to the atmosphere. We were told every summer heat wave was proof, and every cold snap was just weather.Each demand came with the same promise stamped on the box. Comply, and the weather will get better.That is the machine in this cartoon. Insert your boosters. Insert your bug protein. Insert your outrage at Trump and Elon. Insert your vote. Question nothing, obey the screen, and the temperature will finally cooperate.It never does.Here is the part they will not say out loud. Do we have a duty to care for this planet? Yes. We were given it, and we were told to tend it. That obligation is real and it is not up for debate.But caring for the earth and pretending we can dial the thermostat of an entire planet are two very different things. The climate has shifted for as long as the earth has existed. There were ice ages before there were factories. Warming and cooling cycles ran long before the first SUV rolled off a lot. No plan written in a committee room bends a system that size to a politician's schedule.Handing over your freedom, your paycheck, and your dinner plate will not change the weather. It will only change you.