Flights to and from Egypt‘Cop27—A Sonnetised Summary’ and Other Poetry by Susan Jarvis Bryant The Society November 10, 2022 Poetry, Satire, The Environment 54 Comments . Cop27—A Sonnetised Summary upon reading the Cop27 VIP jet dinner menu A swarm of jets belch fumes that blight the blue As contrails stripe the skies of Sharm el-Sheikh, Where greedy gluttons gorge on beasts that moo— This feast ensures these gasbags take the cake. Their hot and noxious air is rising high Like methane from a hyper-farty cow. These cocktail-quaffing scoffers push the lie That Doomsday looms again. We must Act Now! They chow down on their bloody beef medallions. They pilfer public coffers in the name Of saving gasping Gaia from the billions Who dare to breathe and be and show no shame… The hungry watch agog as fork-tongued thugs Bleed them dry then feed them grubs and bugs. . . Hot Air and Hobgoblins The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. —H.L. Mencken “Mencken, thou shouldst be living at this hour” To warn the free man global-warming gloom Peddled by smug leaders wielding power Will faze the head and heart with juicy doom. Their series of hobgoblins ever tricking And menacing the malleable mind Make useful tools of fools ripe for the picking— Those blind with fright find scheming Fat Cats kind. I’d like to think these swindlers are our saviors. I’d love to think each ruler were a god. But judging by their sly and vile behaviors They couldn’t give a fig for those who nod And jump each time they sell their brand of strife. When souls are hooked on fear, they’re slaves for life. . Poet’s Note: The opening line, written by Dr. Joseph Salemi, inspired this poem for Paul Freeman. . . Susan Jarvis Bryant has poetry published on Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Light, Sparks of Calliope, and Expansive Poetry Online. She also has poetry published in TRINACRIA, Beth Houston’s Extreme Formal Poems anthology, and in Openings (anthologies of poems by Open University Poets in the UK). Susan is the winner of the 2020 International SCP Poetry Competition, and has been nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize. NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets. The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary. Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)Trending now: 54 Responses Rohini November 10, 2022 OMG! This is utterly brilliant Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant November 10, 2022 Thank you very much, Rohini! When cunning charlatans party at our expense, I reach for my pen and take aim at those who insult our intelligence… always poetically, of course. Reply Mike Bryant November 10, 2022 Susan, it looks like you’re saying what many of the British commenters are saying. Evan has made part of the epigraph into a link to the Daily Mail article. The hypocrisy is jaw-dropping. They call it COP 27… COP stands for the Conference of Parties… and what a party it IS! This is the 27th year that our would-be Dictators have gathered on our dime to plan our impoverished future… of course, for the disasturbators, the party never ends. You nailed it. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant November 10, 2022 Thank you, Mike – 27 years of world leaders partying on taxpayers’ money, all while scaring those they “care” about into paying for the parties and promoting their agenda – after all, future generations won’t have a planet to live on if their increasingly cruel rules aren’t implemented. Today, those future generations are due to push up daisies and they’re working on the next horrified batch. Reply Julian D. Woodruff November 11, 2022 “Disasturbators”–is that yours, Mike? It’s brilliant! If you claim it, you should send it in to the new rag L-Y-R-A. Reply Mike Bryant November 11, 2022 I wish I could claim it, Julian… it is just too perfect! I heard PJ Watson, a right-thinking Brit, use the term. It would have to be a Brit to make that connection… maybe from thinking “climate wanker!” ? Since I only heard it, I don’t know how he would have spelled it… I think the “u” in the middle makes it perfect! Paul Buchheit November 10, 2022 Very nice, Susan. The serious matter of climate change in the hands of hypocrites! Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant November 10, 2022 Thank you very much, Paul. They are indeed hypocrites – dangerous ones who I happen to think pose a far greater threat to the planet than climate change. Reply Brian Yapko November 10, 2022 This is quite brilliant, Susan, and it really calls out the insufferable hypocrisy of all those daiquiri-guzzling VIPS in Lear jets flying off to Egypt to save the world. Yes, those gas-bags really do take the cake — in a “let them eat cake” sense. New Mexico’s own newly reelected Democratic abortion-celebrating energy-despising governor is on her way there even as we speak, flying at taxpayer expense because… woke. I wonder how many people will be wearing designer masks and slurping martinis. I wonder if they’ll play guess the carbon-count footprint as a party game after the speeches are done. I’m sorry if this comment is uncharacteristically cynical. This news cycle has left me exhausted and depressed. I’m going to go have a hamburger now. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant November 10, 2022 Brian, thank you for your spot-on, highly entertaining comment… it’s a pity there is so much truth in the humor this horrifying behavior inspires. We really do live in clown world… and I am beginning to develop a serious case of coulrophobia. I’m off to indulge in some serious daiquiri-guzzling… medicinal, of course. 😉 Reply Joseph S. Salemi November 10, 2022 Just look at the smug, overentitled faces of those delegates to the Cop27 conference. These are the arrogant elitists who want the rest of us to go vegetarian, not drive cars, eschew air conditioning, and turn over trillions to Third-World cesspools as “reparations” for our so-called carbon footprint. I can’t think of a choicer pack of vermin who are more deserving of the gallows, the guillotine, the garotte, or the gas chamber. Is what I have just said “demeaning”? You can sure the hell bet that it is. It is also sincerely felt. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant November 10, 2022 Joe, I always appreciate your forthright honesty… a noble trait in today’s increasingly duplicitous society. Thank you! Reply Norma Pain November 10, 2022 Thank you for another amazing poem Susan. May all of those dining at the public trough, eat and drink till they burst! Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant November 11, 2022 Thank you very much, Norma. I’ll join you in your inspirational sentiment – may this bevy of blithering bloviators explode in a puff of guff that wafts off leaving a post-bull$#%t trail of fresh air in its woke… sorry, wake. Reply Jeff Eardley November 11, 2022 Wow Susan, your reply to Norma was on par with your sizzling sonnet. I gazed in disbelief last week when our own blustering bull***ting blonde buffoon managed to shoe-horn himself into the trough-fest. This deserves massive, worldwide publication. One of your greatest yet. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant November 11, 2022 Jeff, thank you very much. I’m thrilled you like the sonnet. This outrageous behaviour begged for a poem. The blonde buffoon makes my blood boil. If anyone believes the world leaders care one iota about the planet or the CO2-exhaling people on it after witnessing this blatant show of jaw-dropping hypocrisy, I despair. Reply Paul Freeman November 11, 2022 Although a warming climate due to ever-increasing CO2 emissions since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, coupled with galloping deforestation, are a reality as far as I’m aware, I enjoyed the vigour of the sonnet and the presentation of world leaders and their hangers-on as treating COP27 as a beano. Your strength of feeling reminded me of Greta Thunberg’s ‘Blah, blah, bla…’ speech from last year. Thanks for the read, Susan. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant November 11, 2022 Your ongoing promotion and constant defense of the skewed narrative by the increasingly rich and ever more powerful, designed to impoverish, to cow, and to cull the masses, reminds me of Othello latching on to the lies of Iago in his “keep an eye on your wife” speech. Oops! That’s what comes of thinking your enemy is your best friend. Thanks for dropping by with your hilarious comment, Paul. I have a sneaky feeling you’re a fan of the Babylon Bee. Reply Mike Bryant November 11, 2022 Paul, nice you got the deforestation thing in there… but you left out the Ozone Hole scare, the acid rain scare, the polar bear scare, the ocean acidification scare, the children won’t know snow scare, the methane scare, the nitrogen scare, the lowering oxygen scare, the disappearing water scare, the microplastics scare, the particle pollution scare… and even with all that I’m sure I’m missing lots and lots of scares. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGg6Psw-hqM The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. – H.L. Mencken Reply Joseph S. Salemi November 11, 2022 I wish somebody would write a sonnet that has this first line: “Mencken, thou shouldst be living at this hour…” Susan Jarvis Bryant November 11, 2022 “Mencken, thou shouldst be living at this hour” To warn the free man global-warming gloom, Peddled by smug leaders wielding power, Will faze the head and heart with juicy doom. Their series of hobgoblins ever tricking And menacing the malleable mind Make useful tools of fools ripe for the picking – Those blind with fright find scheming Fat Cats kind. I’d like to think these swindlers are our saviors. I’d love to think each ruler were a god. But judging by their sly and vile behaviors They couldn’t give a fig for those who nod And jump each time they sell their brand of strife. When souls are hooked on fear, they’re slaves for life. Reply Joseph S. Salemi November 11, 2022 Susan — all I can say is WOW. Mike Bryant November 11, 2022 Susan is a poetry machine… when she gets wound up… watch out! Paul Freeman November 13, 2022 Fiddling and diddling and riddling while Rome burns. Amazing! You sound like the Mayor in ‘Jaws’, denying the truth and the science staring him in the face. I’m sure you and Mike’s militia have their reasons. Mike Bryant November 13, 2022 Paul, first, it’s interesting you mention Rome… Rome’s glory days came about, in large part, because of the Roman Warm period, a time before the Little Ice Age. Fortunately, we are recovering from that killing cold to enjoy the life-giving, glorious warmth of the Modern Solar Maximum. Unfortunately, it appears we are already getting colder as the sun’s complexion clears. Second, it’s interesting you bring up a shark story, since you believe Jaws, the biggest, baddest shark in our current era of warmth, is played by Big Oil. So ADNOC, in your eyes, is the villain of the story… a little inexplicable that chicken little works for the sky tumblers… And third, Susan and I would really appreciate it if you could help us find our Militia… we seem to have misplaced it. Susan Jarvis Bryant November 13, 2022 Paul, please bear in mind, before you continue in your hapless hunt for truth deniers and science deniers, a good hard look at the truth from scientists not funded by your self-appointed, filthy rich, hypocritical gods might give you a more enlightened lead. The first clue is in my poem which points out the scammers with the matches who are just about to burn the Western world to ashes. As for the Mayor in “Jaws” – that’s pure projection. That role is all yours and I have a Rome-burning feeling you’re up for an Oscar nomination… and that you’ll win. Yael November 13, 2022 Bravo, bravo!!! Susan I’m in awe of your poetic skills! Where did you learn such eloquence? Joseph S. Salemi November 13, 2022 I don’t really understand this. Freeman works for Abu Dhabi, one of the most dictatorial and unfree emirates in the UAE, and which earns untold sums of cash from the world-wide sale of oil (a fossil fuel). And he has the cheek to come here and berate us for not worrying about CO2 and carbon footprints? Talk about cognitive dissonance. But then again, Greta Thunberg seems happy to fly around on fuel-guzzling jet planes. Go figure. Mike Bryant November 13, 2022 Joe, I guess when you’re in love with the current thing and you get those butterflies of joy fluttering about your stomach every time you embrace the narrative, logic just has to go out the window. Ain’t love grand? I know that love is blind… but deaf, dumb, and unable to smell or think? Mike Bryant November 17, 2022 Also, Joe, somebody said, it’s hard to explain something to a man when his job depends on him NOT understanding it. ADNOC has just made a HUGE investment in wind farms… so, in a way, Paul’s pushing the party line now. A bit of dialog from the movie, Shooter, 2007 starring Mark Wahlberg: Senator Charles F. Meachum : You got any plans after this? You have a rather unique skill set. I’d be interested in offering you a job. Bob Lee Swagger : Work? For you? Senator Charles F. Meachum : It’s not really as bad as it seems. It’s all gonna be done in any case. You might as well be on the side that gets you well paid for your efforts. Nick Memphis : And what side are you on? Senator Charles F. Meachum : There are no sides. There’s no Sunnis and Shiites. There’s no Democrats and Republicans. There’s only HAVES and HAVE-NOTS. This is where we are and have always been. Even in the Garden of Eden, the snake offered a payoff for cooperation. I hope that apple tasted real good… Mike Bryant November 11, 2022 Paul, you said, “Your strength of feeling reminded me of Greta Thunberg’s ‘Blah, blah, bla…’ speech from last year.” Paul, HOW DARE YOU ?!?!? Reply Joseph S. Salemi November 11, 2022 Greta Thunberg? Is anybody still thinking about that tedious little Swedish meatball? Mike Bryant November 13, 2022 This poem is a fictive artifact. It refers to no living person… only a dead one… Hammurabi. There once was a scribbler from Dhabi, This Bard of Abu was quite snobby. See, he lacked all the facts, So to cover his tracks He insulted in rhyme as a hobby. This Englishman from Abu Dhabi, Had another unusual hobby. He’d enrobe himself snazzy, Then pontificate as he Imagined he was King Hammurabi. He was paid with the Emirate’s oil For his English tongue’s teacherly toil. They watched his announcements- So in comment pronouncements, He made sure the sheiks didn’t recoil… In horror at incorrect speech or A faux pas from this English teacher That petroleum’s evil’s Causing climate upheaval, Then declaim him as bug, not a feature. Now the Bard of Abu wasn’t thick. He’d been told that his insults could prick. But there wasn’t a prayer For he just didn’t care. He was clueless that he seemed a dick. Reply Joshua C. Frank November 13, 2022 Paul, we’re all sick of you picking on Susan and Mike for daring to write against your sacred cow of liberalism. If you don’t like their work, don’t read it. You won’t change their minds or mine. You people push tolerance, try being tolerant yourself. Reply Mike Bryant November 11, 2022 CO2 only rises AFTER the sun warms the earth. Why? Because the oceans release CO2 when they warm and they recapture CO2 when they cool. The mechanism is well understood. Even a close look at the stage-size graph in “An Inconvenient Truth” reveals this simple truth. Every dataset, on every time scale, reveals that CO2 levels rise AND fall only AFTER temperatures rise or fall. Earth’s sun is a variable star. So, of course, the temperatures of the planets are variable. Is it any more complicated than that? Sure, but that is the basics. The “complications” is where the one-worlder psyops masters work their lying magic to scare YOU into giving THEM your country, your God, your family, your money, your self-respect and your freedom. Don’t believe the doomsayers… and DON’T become one of their little disasturbators! You’ll only embarrass yourself. Reply Mike Bryant November 11, 2022 Here’s a great article about the scammers from 2011: https://www.cfact.org/2011/08/26/climate-prostitutes-charlatans-and-comedians/ Reply Julian D. Woodruff November 11, 2022 Great one, Susan. The modern world can abandon the carved or chiselled idol (the pachamama is merely an idol of an idol): it has all these high-flown disaster mongers to worship (and pay). Reply Cynthia Erlandson November 11, 2022 If you can speak as sharply as you write, Susan, I want a “Susan for President” yard sign. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant November 11, 2022 Cynthia, I’m smiling If speeches are allowed in Shakespearean sonnet form with a wicked volta and a soaring closing couplet, get that yard sign ready – I’m your woman! Susan Jarvis Bryant November 11, 2022 Julian, your comment is spot on… what on earth has the world become?! Reply Mike Bryant November 11, 2022 Just to bring a bit of optimism to these pages, I offer a couple of illuminating quotes: The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are. -H. L. Mencken I find it somewhat comforting that Mencken described the government 96 years ago as “dishonest, insane and intolerable,” because that means the human race managed to survive another century – and is even much healthier, wealthier and wiser than it was a century ago – despite politicians’ constant efforts to frighten us into submission. We have endured through a then-unimaginable series of dishonest, insane and intolerable acts by practical politicians all over the world, and we will survive whatever imaginary hobgoblins they whip up for us next, if we have the good sense to prevent them from leading us to “safety.” -Warren Blumh July 13, 2021 Reply Roy Eugene Peterson November 11, 2022 May all the curses of the pyramids be upon them! Another brilliant contribution replete with logic and good sense, while we taxpayers continue to pay for the trips, banquets and hotels that determine nothing more than our slavery to nonsense in the world! Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant November 13, 2022 Roy, you have it absolutely right! How anyone can fail to see the skullduggery afoot is beyond me. Thank you very much for your astute comment – much appreciated. Reply Joseph S. Salemi November 11, 2022 If you’ve seen the latest issue of Chronicles magazine, there is an excellent article by Mark G. Brennan (“Pakistan Goes Panhandling Again”). It’s about some dumb Pakistani broad named Fatima Bhutto, who is claiming that carbon emissions from “the Global North” are responsible for the mass flooding in her country. Brennan points out that Pakistan has been inundated by floodwaters in every monsoon season, and that the real reason for her country’s degradation (it is “The Haiti of Asia,” says Brennan) is the utter corruption of its government and greedy landowners, who have taken no steps whatsoever to protect the country fro these natural disasters. Instead, Pakistan depends on guilt-money from the West to serve as ad-hoc bandages on its rotten system, while rich bitches like Bhutto (she studied at Barnard) are part of the corrupt elite that runs Pakistan like a private fiefdom. She blames carbon emissions from the northern hemisphere for her country’s plight, but the Asian Development Bank reports that the actual cause is the nation’s “rampant systemic corruption and nepotism,” “an inefficient and corrupt police system,” the theft of UN relief funds by the nation’s oligarchy, and several other instances of chronic misgovernment and high-level peculation. Pakistan is a complete shit-hole, besides being the place that harbored the terrorist Bin-Laden for years. So all this virtuous blarney about the West’s “carbon footprint” and the terrible effect it is having on the Third World is nothing but posturing and blackmail by the usual suspects. By the way, my house is heated with oil, my stove runs on natural gas, and I take cars or taxicabs wherever I have to go. I even make huge, smoky beef barbecues during the summer months, and I burn thousands of leaves every fall. I intend to leave as big a carbon footprint as I can. Reply Mike Bryant November 11, 2022 So well said… only those who will make the effort to search beyond the one world narrative will realize the simple truth that you have made clear. This same story is behind every story of “helping” these smaller countries to access “green” energy… it really means huge contracts with wind, solar, and connected oil companies and countries that will make billions on this “help” and then share those billions with the vermin at COP27 while the poor in Bangladesh and other countries drown in their poverty. Reply Joshua C. Frank November 11, 2022 Another great one Susan! This reminds me of someone my mother used to work for in California, who constantly preached her woke agenda—anti-Christian, anti-American, anti-family, radical environmentalist… and then she flew around the world for vacations and to go and make recycling disciples of all nations. She didn’t care what she did, just what everyone else did. These people sound like that. The couplet at the end really says it all. I think it’s time for everyone who hasn’t done so already to admit it: the woke elites have taken over the world and are now dividing up the pieces like European countries “carving the African melon.” Thanks for another great poem! Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant November 13, 2022 Joshua, thank you very much for this comment. I think we all know many like the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do character you mention… it’s these virtue-signaling it’s-okay-when-we-do-it hypocrites that are enabling this sheer evil to be peddled be promoted. Not until they feel the consequences of their idiocy will it become evident that they were wrong, and then it will be too darn late. When endangered critters become more important than endangered human beings, we’ve lost the plot. Reply g.KayeNaegele November 11, 2022 Brilliant poetic accomplishment of classic form, meter, and phrasing is stimulating and expresses your point of view with panache and style. Bravo. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant November 13, 2022 Thank you very much for this appreciative comment. I really hope my poem makes a difference to someone somewhere… everyone everywhere would be good, but I’ll settle for someone. 🙂 Reply Lannie David Brockstein November 11, 2022 Susan, it might be easier for any thoughtful person to believe that climate change is true if its chief proponents were not pathological liars, puppets, and hypocrites (as your “Cop27—A Sonnetised Summary” accurately describes), whom also propagate the unscientific disinformation that gender change is normal, that wearing a face mask protects its wearer against an airborne virus, and Big Pharma’s many other evil and insane cultist false beliefs that in reality make as much sense as judging any woman as being a witch if she floats in water because witches are made of wood, and wood floats in water, too. But until it is recognized that Big Pharma is the main villain on Earth in every major story line, what will change? Who is responsible for having performed millions of genocidal abortions? Big Pharma. Who harvests and transplants the organs of the Falun Gong, the Uyghurs, and other political prisoners in China? Big Pharma. Who is responsible for the opioid crisis? Big Pharma. Whose endocrine disrupting and thus gender changing chemicals have polluted the water supply of every large city? Big Pharma. Whose pesticide and GMO products that factory farmers use sterilize and thus erode the soil, thereby releasing more megatons of GHGEs into the atmosphere than does the automobile industry, along with that sterilized soil not producing properly nutritious crops that therefore causes the general public to be malnourished and vulnerable to disease? Big Pharma. Who performs the same horrific medical experiments on animals as the Nazis performed on Disabled Germans and Jewish children, and despite the moral fact that not even animals deserve to be treated inhumanely? Big Pharma. Who performs gain-of-function experiments on microorganisms that causes them to become extremely lethal? Big Pharma. Whose vaccine products that cause the immune system to produce antibodies against “pathogenic” microorganisms who cannot be detected by the immune system because they camouflage themselves to look like their environment that is a part of the person’s body, therefore also causes that person’s immune system to develop an autoimmune disease from their immune system producing antibodies that target the same part of the human body that the “pathogenic” microorganism is camouflaged as? Big Pharma. Who during the past few years did execute an outright fascist and hostile takeover of society? Big Pharma. Is there even one major story line as spun by most politicians, as broadcasted by the mainstream media and the Big Tech social media platforms, and as evangelized by the public schools and universities, each of which are controlled by Big Pharma in its being, by far, their largest buyer of advertising space or financial donor, that does not secretly have Big Pharma as its main villain on Earth? What does a world without the evil that is Big Pharma look and sound like? That is what I hope for you and the many other talented poets at The Society of Classical Poets to consider meditating upon each night before falling asleep and awakening into the greater world of dream and prophecy. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant November 13, 2022 Lannie, thank you. You make some excellent points here… I think we have a big case of misplaced fear in society. The things we should fear are staring us right in the face and we’re choosing to ignore them. Why, I wonder? Reply David Watt November 13, 2022 Susan, this is a tremendous sonnet, both in form and as hard-hitting commentary. Those hypocrites enjoy unrestricted air conditioning, jet travel, and food they would deny to the rest of us. I recall the saying that in socialism everyone is equal, although a favored few are ‘more equal’ than others. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant November 13, 2022 David, thank you very much for this… it seems that some are getting a lot more equal than others… all on the taxpayers’ hard-earned cash, right in front of our eyes as they rub our noses in their hypocrisy. Why anyone would listen to a single word of their proposed “care” for the planet is beyond my comprehension. I thoroughly appreciate your logic and your sanity, David. Reply Susan Jarvis Bryant November 13, 2022 Yael, the thread has got too long for me to know where to reply. I just want to say thank you for your appreciation and your support. The truth isn’t well received in this post-truth era, and your words mean a lot. Reply Leave a Reply Cancel ReplyYour email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Susan Jarvis Bryant November 10, 2022 Thank you very much, Rohini! When cunning charlatans party at our expense, I reach for my pen and take aim at those who insult our intelligence… always poetically, of course. Reply
Mike Bryant November 10, 2022 Susan, it looks like you’re saying what many of the British commenters are saying. Evan has made part of the epigraph into a link to the Daily Mail article. The hypocrisy is jaw-dropping. They call it COP 27… COP stands for the Conference of Parties… and what a party it IS! This is the 27th year that our would-be Dictators have gathered on our dime to plan our impoverished future… of course, for the disasturbators, the party never ends. You nailed it. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant November 10, 2022 Thank you, Mike – 27 years of world leaders partying on taxpayers’ money, all while scaring those they “care” about into paying for the parties and promoting their agenda – after all, future generations won’t have a planet to live on if their increasingly cruel rules aren’t implemented. Today, those future generations are due to push up daisies and they’re working on the next horrified batch. Reply
Julian D. Woodruff November 11, 2022 “Disasturbators”–is that yours, Mike? It’s brilliant! If you claim it, you should send it in to the new rag L-Y-R-A. Reply
Mike Bryant November 11, 2022 I wish I could claim it, Julian… it is just too perfect! I heard PJ Watson, a right-thinking Brit, use the term. It would have to be a Brit to make that connection… maybe from thinking “climate wanker!” ? Since I only heard it, I don’t know how he would have spelled it… I think the “u” in the middle makes it perfect!
Paul Buchheit November 10, 2022 Very nice, Susan. The serious matter of climate change in the hands of hypocrites! Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant November 10, 2022 Thank you very much, Paul. They are indeed hypocrites – dangerous ones who I happen to think pose a far greater threat to the planet than climate change. Reply
Brian Yapko November 10, 2022 This is quite brilliant, Susan, and it really calls out the insufferable hypocrisy of all those daiquiri-guzzling VIPS in Lear jets flying off to Egypt to save the world. Yes, those gas-bags really do take the cake — in a “let them eat cake” sense. New Mexico’s own newly reelected Democratic abortion-celebrating energy-despising governor is on her way there even as we speak, flying at taxpayer expense because… woke. I wonder how many people will be wearing designer masks and slurping martinis. I wonder if they’ll play guess the carbon-count footprint as a party game after the speeches are done. I’m sorry if this comment is uncharacteristically cynical. This news cycle has left me exhausted and depressed. I’m going to go have a hamburger now. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant November 10, 2022 Brian, thank you for your spot-on, highly entertaining comment… it’s a pity there is so much truth in the humor this horrifying behavior inspires. We really do live in clown world… and I am beginning to develop a serious case of coulrophobia. I’m off to indulge in some serious daiquiri-guzzling… medicinal, of course. 😉 Reply
Joseph S. Salemi November 10, 2022 Just look at the smug, overentitled faces of those delegates to the Cop27 conference. These are the arrogant elitists who want the rest of us to go vegetarian, not drive cars, eschew air conditioning, and turn over trillions to Third-World cesspools as “reparations” for our so-called carbon footprint. I can’t think of a choicer pack of vermin who are more deserving of the gallows, the guillotine, the garotte, or the gas chamber. Is what I have just said “demeaning”? You can sure the hell bet that it is. It is also sincerely felt. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant November 10, 2022 Joe, I always appreciate your forthright honesty… a noble trait in today’s increasingly duplicitous society. Thank you! Reply
Norma Pain November 10, 2022 Thank you for another amazing poem Susan. May all of those dining at the public trough, eat and drink till they burst! Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant November 11, 2022 Thank you very much, Norma. I’ll join you in your inspirational sentiment – may this bevy of blithering bloviators explode in a puff of guff that wafts off leaving a post-bull$#%t trail of fresh air in its woke… sorry, wake. Reply
Jeff Eardley November 11, 2022 Wow Susan, your reply to Norma was on par with your sizzling sonnet. I gazed in disbelief last week when our own blustering bull***ting blonde buffoon managed to shoe-horn himself into the trough-fest. This deserves massive, worldwide publication. One of your greatest yet. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant November 11, 2022 Jeff, thank you very much. I’m thrilled you like the sonnet. This outrageous behaviour begged for a poem. The blonde buffoon makes my blood boil. If anyone believes the world leaders care one iota about the planet or the CO2-exhaling people on it after witnessing this blatant show of jaw-dropping hypocrisy, I despair. Reply
Paul Freeman November 11, 2022 Although a warming climate due to ever-increasing CO2 emissions since the advent of the Industrial Revolution, coupled with galloping deforestation, are a reality as far as I’m aware, I enjoyed the vigour of the sonnet and the presentation of world leaders and their hangers-on as treating COP27 as a beano. Your strength of feeling reminded me of Greta Thunberg’s ‘Blah, blah, bla…’ speech from last year. Thanks for the read, Susan. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant November 11, 2022 Your ongoing promotion and constant defense of the skewed narrative by the increasingly rich and ever more powerful, designed to impoverish, to cow, and to cull the masses, reminds me of Othello latching on to the lies of Iago in his “keep an eye on your wife” speech. Oops! That’s what comes of thinking your enemy is your best friend. Thanks for dropping by with your hilarious comment, Paul. I have a sneaky feeling you’re a fan of the Babylon Bee. Reply
Mike Bryant November 11, 2022 Paul, nice you got the deforestation thing in there… but you left out the Ozone Hole scare, the acid rain scare, the polar bear scare, the ocean acidification scare, the children won’t know snow scare, the methane scare, the nitrogen scare, the lowering oxygen scare, the disappearing water scare, the microplastics scare, the particle pollution scare… and even with all that I’m sure I’m missing lots and lots of scares. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGg6Psw-hqM The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. – H.L. Mencken Reply
Joseph S. Salemi November 11, 2022 I wish somebody would write a sonnet that has this first line: “Mencken, thou shouldst be living at this hour…”
Susan Jarvis Bryant November 11, 2022 “Mencken, thou shouldst be living at this hour” To warn the free man global-warming gloom, Peddled by smug leaders wielding power, Will faze the head and heart with juicy doom. Their series of hobgoblins ever tricking And menacing the malleable mind Make useful tools of fools ripe for the picking – Those blind with fright find scheming Fat Cats kind. I’d like to think these swindlers are our saviors. I’d love to think each ruler were a god. But judging by their sly and vile behaviors They couldn’t give a fig for those who nod And jump each time they sell their brand of strife. When souls are hooked on fear, they’re slaves for life. Reply
Paul Freeman November 13, 2022 Fiddling and diddling and riddling while Rome burns. Amazing! You sound like the Mayor in ‘Jaws’, denying the truth and the science staring him in the face. I’m sure you and Mike’s militia have their reasons.
Mike Bryant November 13, 2022 Paul, first, it’s interesting you mention Rome… Rome’s glory days came about, in large part, because of the Roman Warm period, a time before the Little Ice Age. Fortunately, we are recovering from that killing cold to enjoy the life-giving, glorious warmth of the Modern Solar Maximum. Unfortunately, it appears we are already getting colder as the sun’s complexion clears. Second, it’s interesting you bring up a shark story, since you believe Jaws, the biggest, baddest shark in our current era of warmth, is played by Big Oil. So ADNOC, in your eyes, is the villain of the story… a little inexplicable that chicken little works for the sky tumblers… And third, Susan and I would really appreciate it if you could help us find our Militia… we seem to have misplaced it.
Susan Jarvis Bryant November 13, 2022 Paul, please bear in mind, before you continue in your hapless hunt for truth deniers and science deniers, a good hard look at the truth from scientists not funded by your self-appointed, filthy rich, hypocritical gods might give you a more enlightened lead. The first clue is in my poem which points out the scammers with the matches who are just about to burn the Western world to ashes. As for the Mayor in “Jaws” – that’s pure projection. That role is all yours and I have a Rome-burning feeling you’re up for an Oscar nomination… and that you’ll win.
Yael November 13, 2022 Bravo, bravo!!! Susan I’m in awe of your poetic skills! Where did you learn such eloquence?
Joseph S. Salemi November 13, 2022 I don’t really understand this. Freeman works for Abu Dhabi, one of the most dictatorial and unfree emirates in the UAE, and which earns untold sums of cash from the world-wide sale of oil (a fossil fuel). And he has the cheek to come here and berate us for not worrying about CO2 and carbon footprints? Talk about cognitive dissonance. But then again, Greta Thunberg seems happy to fly around on fuel-guzzling jet planes. Go figure.
Mike Bryant November 13, 2022 Joe, I guess when you’re in love with the current thing and you get those butterflies of joy fluttering about your stomach every time you embrace the narrative, logic just has to go out the window. Ain’t love grand? I know that love is blind… but deaf, dumb, and unable to smell or think?
Mike Bryant November 17, 2022 Also, Joe, somebody said, it’s hard to explain something to a man when his job depends on him NOT understanding it. ADNOC has just made a HUGE investment in wind farms… so, in a way, Paul’s pushing the party line now. A bit of dialog from the movie, Shooter, 2007 starring Mark Wahlberg: Senator Charles F. Meachum : You got any plans after this? You have a rather unique skill set. I’d be interested in offering you a job. Bob Lee Swagger : Work? For you? Senator Charles F. Meachum : It’s not really as bad as it seems. It’s all gonna be done in any case. You might as well be on the side that gets you well paid for your efforts. Nick Memphis : And what side are you on? Senator Charles F. Meachum : There are no sides. There’s no Sunnis and Shiites. There’s no Democrats and Republicans. There’s only HAVES and HAVE-NOTS. This is where we are and have always been. Even in the Garden of Eden, the snake offered a payoff for cooperation. I hope that apple tasted real good…
Mike Bryant November 11, 2022 Paul, you said, “Your strength of feeling reminded me of Greta Thunberg’s ‘Blah, blah, bla…’ speech from last year.” Paul, HOW DARE YOU ?!?!? Reply
Joseph S. Salemi November 11, 2022 Greta Thunberg? Is anybody still thinking about that tedious little Swedish meatball?
Mike Bryant November 13, 2022 This poem is a fictive artifact. It refers to no living person… only a dead one… Hammurabi. There once was a scribbler from Dhabi, This Bard of Abu was quite snobby. See, he lacked all the facts, So to cover his tracks He insulted in rhyme as a hobby. This Englishman from Abu Dhabi, Had another unusual hobby. He’d enrobe himself snazzy, Then pontificate as he Imagined he was King Hammurabi. He was paid with the Emirate’s oil For his English tongue’s teacherly toil. They watched his announcements- So in comment pronouncements, He made sure the sheiks didn’t recoil… In horror at incorrect speech or A faux pas from this English teacher That petroleum’s evil’s Causing climate upheaval, Then declaim him as bug, not a feature. Now the Bard of Abu wasn’t thick. He’d been told that his insults could prick. But there wasn’t a prayer For he just didn’t care. He was clueless that he seemed a dick. Reply
Joshua C. Frank November 13, 2022 Paul, we’re all sick of you picking on Susan and Mike for daring to write against your sacred cow of liberalism. If you don’t like their work, don’t read it. You won’t change their minds or mine. You people push tolerance, try being tolerant yourself. Reply
Mike Bryant November 11, 2022 CO2 only rises AFTER the sun warms the earth. Why? Because the oceans release CO2 when they warm and they recapture CO2 when they cool. The mechanism is well understood. Even a close look at the stage-size graph in “An Inconvenient Truth” reveals this simple truth. Every dataset, on every time scale, reveals that CO2 levels rise AND fall only AFTER temperatures rise or fall. Earth’s sun is a variable star. So, of course, the temperatures of the planets are variable. Is it any more complicated than that? Sure, but that is the basics. The “complications” is where the one-worlder psyops masters work their lying magic to scare YOU into giving THEM your country, your God, your family, your money, your self-respect and your freedom. Don’t believe the doomsayers… and DON’T become one of their little disasturbators! You’ll only embarrass yourself. Reply
Mike Bryant November 11, 2022 Here’s a great article about the scammers from 2011: https://www.cfact.org/2011/08/26/climate-prostitutes-charlatans-and-comedians/ Reply
Julian D. Woodruff November 11, 2022 Great one, Susan. The modern world can abandon the carved or chiselled idol (the pachamama is merely an idol of an idol): it has all these high-flown disaster mongers to worship (and pay). Reply
Cynthia Erlandson November 11, 2022 If you can speak as sharply as you write, Susan, I want a “Susan for President” yard sign. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant November 11, 2022 Cynthia, I’m smiling If speeches are allowed in Shakespearean sonnet form with a wicked volta and a soaring closing couplet, get that yard sign ready – I’m your woman!
Susan Jarvis Bryant November 11, 2022 Julian, your comment is spot on… what on earth has the world become?! Reply
Mike Bryant November 11, 2022 Just to bring a bit of optimism to these pages, I offer a couple of illuminating quotes: The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are. -H. L. Mencken I find it somewhat comforting that Mencken described the government 96 years ago as “dishonest, insane and intolerable,” because that means the human race managed to survive another century – and is even much healthier, wealthier and wiser than it was a century ago – despite politicians’ constant efforts to frighten us into submission. We have endured through a then-unimaginable series of dishonest, insane and intolerable acts by practical politicians all over the world, and we will survive whatever imaginary hobgoblins they whip up for us next, if we have the good sense to prevent them from leading us to “safety.” -Warren Blumh July 13, 2021 Reply
Roy Eugene Peterson November 11, 2022 May all the curses of the pyramids be upon them! Another brilliant contribution replete with logic and good sense, while we taxpayers continue to pay for the trips, banquets and hotels that determine nothing more than our slavery to nonsense in the world! Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant November 13, 2022 Roy, you have it absolutely right! How anyone can fail to see the skullduggery afoot is beyond me. Thank you very much for your astute comment – much appreciated. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi November 11, 2022 If you’ve seen the latest issue of Chronicles magazine, there is an excellent article by Mark G. Brennan (“Pakistan Goes Panhandling Again”). It’s about some dumb Pakistani broad named Fatima Bhutto, who is claiming that carbon emissions from “the Global North” are responsible for the mass flooding in her country. Brennan points out that Pakistan has been inundated by floodwaters in every monsoon season, and that the real reason for her country’s degradation (it is “The Haiti of Asia,” says Brennan) is the utter corruption of its government and greedy landowners, who have taken no steps whatsoever to protect the country fro these natural disasters. Instead, Pakistan depends on guilt-money from the West to serve as ad-hoc bandages on its rotten system, while rich bitches like Bhutto (she studied at Barnard) are part of the corrupt elite that runs Pakistan like a private fiefdom. She blames carbon emissions from the northern hemisphere for her country’s plight, but the Asian Development Bank reports that the actual cause is the nation’s “rampant systemic corruption and nepotism,” “an inefficient and corrupt police system,” the theft of UN relief funds by the nation’s oligarchy, and several other instances of chronic misgovernment and high-level peculation. Pakistan is a complete shit-hole, besides being the place that harbored the terrorist Bin-Laden for years. So all this virtuous blarney about the West’s “carbon footprint” and the terrible effect it is having on the Third World is nothing but posturing and blackmail by the usual suspects. By the way, my house is heated with oil, my stove runs on natural gas, and I take cars or taxicabs wherever I have to go. I even make huge, smoky beef barbecues during the summer months, and I burn thousands of leaves every fall. I intend to leave as big a carbon footprint as I can. Reply
Mike Bryant November 11, 2022 So well said… only those who will make the effort to search beyond the one world narrative will realize the simple truth that you have made clear. This same story is behind every story of “helping” these smaller countries to access “green” energy… it really means huge contracts with wind, solar, and connected oil companies and countries that will make billions on this “help” and then share those billions with the vermin at COP27 while the poor in Bangladesh and other countries drown in their poverty. Reply
Joshua C. Frank November 11, 2022 Another great one Susan! This reminds me of someone my mother used to work for in California, who constantly preached her woke agenda—anti-Christian, anti-American, anti-family, radical environmentalist… and then she flew around the world for vacations and to go and make recycling disciples of all nations. She didn’t care what she did, just what everyone else did. These people sound like that. The couplet at the end really says it all. I think it’s time for everyone who hasn’t done so already to admit it: the woke elites have taken over the world and are now dividing up the pieces like European countries “carving the African melon.” Thanks for another great poem! Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant November 13, 2022 Joshua, thank you very much for this comment. I think we all know many like the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do character you mention… it’s these virtue-signaling it’s-okay-when-we-do-it hypocrites that are enabling this sheer evil to be peddled be promoted. Not until they feel the consequences of their idiocy will it become evident that they were wrong, and then it will be too darn late. When endangered critters become more important than endangered human beings, we’ve lost the plot. Reply
g.KayeNaegele November 11, 2022 Brilliant poetic accomplishment of classic form, meter, and phrasing is stimulating and expresses your point of view with panache and style. Bravo. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant November 13, 2022 Thank you very much for this appreciative comment. I really hope my poem makes a difference to someone somewhere… everyone everywhere would be good, but I’ll settle for someone. 🙂 Reply
Lannie David Brockstein November 11, 2022 Susan, it might be easier for any thoughtful person to believe that climate change is true if its chief proponents were not pathological liars, puppets, and hypocrites (as your “Cop27—A Sonnetised Summary” accurately describes), whom also propagate the unscientific disinformation that gender change is normal, that wearing a face mask protects its wearer against an airborne virus, and Big Pharma’s many other evil and insane cultist false beliefs that in reality make as much sense as judging any woman as being a witch if she floats in water because witches are made of wood, and wood floats in water, too. But until it is recognized that Big Pharma is the main villain on Earth in every major story line, what will change? Who is responsible for having performed millions of genocidal abortions? Big Pharma. Who harvests and transplants the organs of the Falun Gong, the Uyghurs, and other political prisoners in China? Big Pharma. Who is responsible for the opioid crisis? Big Pharma. Whose endocrine disrupting and thus gender changing chemicals have polluted the water supply of every large city? Big Pharma. Whose pesticide and GMO products that factory farmers use sterilize and thus erode the soil, thereby releasing more megatons of GHGEs into the atmosphere than does the automobile industry, along with that sterilized soil not producing properly nutritious crops that therefore causes the general public to be malnourished and vulnerable to disease? Big Pharma. Who performs the same horrific medical experiments on animals as the Nazis performed on Disabled Germans and Jewish children, and despite the moral fact that not even animals deserve to be treated inhumanely? Big Pharma. Who performs gain-of-function experiments on microorganisms that causes them to become extremely lethal? Big Pharma. Whose vaccine products that cause the immune system to produce antibodies against “pathogenic” microorganisms who cannot be detected by the immune system because they camouflage themselves to look like their environment that is a part of the person’s body, therefore also causes that person’s immune system to develop an autoimmune disease from their immune system producing antibodies that target the same part of the human body that the “pathogenic” microorganism is camouflaged as? Big Pharma. Who during the past few years did execute an outright fascist and hostile takeover of society? Big Pharma. Is there even one major story line as spun by most politicians, as broadcasted by the mainstream media and the Big Tech social media platforms, and as evangelized by the public schools and universities, each of which are controlled by Big Pharma in its being, by far, their largest buyer of advertising space or financial donor, that does not secretly have Big Pharma as its main villain on Earth? What does a world without the evil that is Big Pharma look and sound like? That is what I hope for you and the many other talented poets at The Society of Classical Poets to consider meditating upon each night before falling asleep and awakening into the greater world of dream and prophecy. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant November 13, 2022 Lannie, thank you. You make some excellent points here… I think we have a big case of misplaced fear in society. The things we should fear are staring us right in the face and we’re choosing to ignore them. Why, I wonder? Reply
David Watt November 13, 2022 Susan, this is a tremendous sonnet, both in form and as hard-hitting commentary. Those hypocrites enjoy unrestricted air conditioning, jet travel, and food they would deny to the rest of us. I recall the saying that in socialism everyone is equal, although a favored few are ‘more equal’ than others. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant November 13, 2022 David, thank you very much for this… it seems that some are getting a lot more equal than others… all on the taxpayers’ hard-earned cash, right in front of our eyes as they rub our noses in their hypocrisy. Why anyone would listen to a single word of their proposed “care” for the planet is beyond my comprehension. I thoroughly appreciate your logic and your sanity, David. Reply
Susan Jarvis Bryant November 13, 2022 Yael, the thread has got too long for me to know where to reply. I just want to say thank you for your appreciation and your support. The truth isn’t well received in this post-truth era, and your words mean a lot. Reply
