Da Laird and Da Meenister

Back in the days when “Da Kirk” held sway in Shetland and “Da Meenister” would drop by to round up last Sunday’s truants, Shetlanders were exhorted to beware the deadly sins of “Old John Barleycorn, the nicotine and the temptations of Eve”. In the early days of cinema, preachers highlighted the significance of the sign inside that said: “This way to the Pit”. But the hold of the Kirk is broken and the old caveats are laughed off every Friday and Saturday night and many a night in between.

Alas, people need rules to live by so they can compete at being good, using their adherence to the rules and thus obedience to a judging “super-parent” as evidence to themselves and others of their “goodness”.  Karl Marx observed that “religion is the opium of the people”. As he saw it, the belief that being good in this life would bring rewards in the next anaesthetised the population from the rigours imposed on them by their erstwhile masters, “Da Laird an’ Da Meenister”.

Education, whether in communism, science or philosophy, and the arrival of television, broke the Kirk’s power over congregations who, no longer in thrall to fire and brimstone, departed in droves to latter day versions of Belshazzar’s Feast.

Various cults have, entrepreneurially, sprung up to fulfil the yearning for belonging and framework for life left by the demise of the Kirk, all of whose theme is that the world has never been worse and that our sins will cause destruction to rain down on us.

Where communicating “the writing on the wall” is concerned, none has been more successful than the global warming movement which has revived not only the old sins of avarice, gluttony and lust, as manifested in the size of our “carbon footprints”, but guilt – red-handed, searing, guilty guilt – as well as reviving the old alliance with politicians, financiers and landowners. Da Laird an Da Meenister are back in business.

That’s right, the vulgus mobile, the great unwashed – you and me – will forego our foreign holidays and our taxis to the pub on a rainy night and spend the money we save on home insulation and draught exclusion and keep warm by dellin’ wir foreign-fruit-and-veg-eliminating allotments (“Onyboady at’s wirkin’ll no be caald”) – and drive around in cars that look like recycled fridges on castors, if we’re lucky!

Meanwhile, Da Lairds an Da Meenisters, in their self-sacrificing way, help think up more and better ways to cleanse our carbon footprint sins – and to negotiate with other Lairds an Meenisters – will be forced to forego their dearest principles and continue as before, jetting all over the world in their thousands and riding in chauffer-driven limousines, to climate conferences where they will be forced to live in five-star hotels and of course, exotic foreign holidays will be de rigeur, in order to cope with the stress of it all. How very unselfish and public-spirited! How can we ever repay them?

You’re right, I don’t think much of this deal. I’ve written repeatedly providing evidence of the scam of global warming and I won’t add to that here, except to confirm my view that the great hoax is collapsing.

When the world stopped warming (“No statistically significant warming since 1995” – Prof Phil Jones, UEA CRU, to UK parliamentary “Climategate” Inquiry, 2010), global warming was re-named “climate change” so that any weather, eg. Cockermouth floods, could be laid at the door of rising carbon dioxide levels without the embarrassment of having to mention warming when it’s actually cooling.

Climate change, however, has been ongoing on since the Creation. In the Bible, after all, didn’t God counsel Noah to build the Ark in advance of the great flood which, reputedly, carried it well up the side of Mount Ararat and likewise, Joseph to warn of seven years of famine in Egypt that would follow seven years of plenty – this was “climate change”, not “weather” and the internal combustion engine had not yet been invented by about 3,000 years.

So how many artificial jobs have been created and how much money has the SIC squandered, not only on every “ne-er-do-weel” that rolls up with a fancy lawyer, but also on that load of old codswallop known as “climate change”? Climate change summits, sustainability conferences, the list goes on.

And then they turn around and say they haven’t any money to run the Scalloway School!

To my mind, that’s the biggest SIC scandal I’ve heard yet. Get your priorities right, guys!

I know it’s hard to keep a pointy hat on in a gale but next time you want to bring in a bunch of Gaia worshippers to exhort us not to emit carbon dioxide, let them lead by example and fly in on their own broomsticks!

J Tulloch
Lyndon,
Arrochar.