Time Spent Making Art: Global Warming Solved?

Thursday, 15 March 2018

Global Warming Solved?

I find, despite my probably not being around to experience serious weather problems attributable to global warming, that I'm interested in the struggles of politicians to convince their constituents of its reality, and the need for immediate action. Most of us believe that there is a problem, but apart from sorting out our garbage, few are willing to make a personal sacrifice to their way of life. A carbon tax is now the big thing. Tax fossil fuels to the point that such things as driving a car, heating your home, and running your appliances on electrical sources fuelled by fossil fuels, becomes so expensive as to force consumers to buy into green energy.

In Canada the carbon tax debate is heating up with several of the provinces opposed. I personally don’t see that it will work. It's proposed that all of us will be taxed by the federal government, and then the federal government will give the tax back to the provinces to be used to fund technology designed to fight global warming. I question whether it will work as it would seem to me to weaken, or limit, any solution that might exist. In my mind, however, there really exists no solution, save the obvious, and this involves a social change of global magnitude, which would never find acceptance by the major religions, and that is population control. Everyone seems to think that if we bring the CO2 emissions under control, and come up with a clean energy source, that everything will be hunky dory. It’s a dream at best. It may work for a few days, but an ever increasing population will so strain green energy, that within a few decades the problem will be back on the table. Already, sources of potable water are at a crisis level, food supplies are dwindling, and we continued to compete with rabbits for bragging rights to breeding.

It would seem that humans are flawed when it comes to accepting the obvious. Perhaps, it’s this thing about everlasting life, perpetuating the species, or in the case of governments and various religions, the creation of power, armies, through an ever increasing population. We humans are much like an untreatable virus, a virus that must run its course until it destroys its host, which in our case is the environment in which we thrive.

We'll see, won't we?

So, after this rant, it's probably time now for a little art.

In putting together another book I came across a box of tracings, and drawings, that I used to make my etchings and paintings. To explain, I used tracing paper to save the parts of drawings that appeared to be correct, transferring these parts to another sheet of paper to be worked upon further, until I arrived at a point where they could be transferred to a metal plate, or sheet of watercolour paper to make a composition. I prefer this method to the use of an eraser. I would also point out that it was necessary to produce detailed linear drawings. If one paints with oil or acrylic mistakes are easily worked over. However, mistakes are unforgivable when making an etching or painting with watercolour.