September 17, 2025

The Great Green Grift


Welcome to the Great Green Grift—where noble intentions drown in a sea of hypocrisy and cash, and the planet’s salvation is just another lucrative market for the 1% that already own about half the world’s wealth. 

The climate crisis, soon to be an ‘emergency’, we’re told, is humanity’s existential threat, and CO2’s the villain, warming the Earth by 1.1°C since the Industrial Revolution (IPCC’s numbers).

It seems obvious that change is happening, but the solutions? 

They’re less about saving anything and more about fattening wallets. Welcome to the Great Green Grift, where hyperbolic eco-heros and corporate sharks team up to screw the rest of us, all while cloaked in superhero capes in shades of glorious green stitched together with vines of virtue. Take carbon credits, the indulgences of the 21st century. You pay a fee to offset your carbon “sins”—say, an international flight—and some company promises to plant a tree in Borneo. Half the time, those trees are already there, or they’re cut down for palm oil before you’ve unpacked your suitcase. 

The global carbon market’s worth over $800 billion, yet emissions keep climbing. Funny how the mansions of the rich are lit up like Vegas while they lecture us to unplug our toasters. It’s performance art for profit, with the greenwashing on the outside masking the greed on the inside. Then there’s the renewable energy racket. Wind turbines and solar panels sound great, until you see the strip-mined cobalt for batteries or the used turbine blades being buried because there is nothing else that can be done with them. 

They have been lying about everything else, what makes us think they are all of a sudden telling the truth about all of this?

Subsidies for green tech are a goldmine for corporations with about $1 trillion globally in 2022. Meanwhile, your energy bill spikes because “sustainable” grids struggle to keep the lights on. 

The 1% don’t care. Their Tesla charges just fine at their third vacation home. And the greenwashing continues. BP rebranded as “Beyond Petroleum” while spilling oil like drunken frat boys spilling beer. It’s a shameless move of optics over action.

It’s not about the planet; it’s about control and cash, just like the failed global COVID response (or worse, did it turn out exactly the way the wanted it to?). If so, what is their real agenda with the manufactured climate panic? Sure, CO2 traps heat—physics doesn’t lie. But the apocalyptic prophecies? Often overcooked models that ignore methane, solar cycles, or plain old human adaptability. 

The green grift, and others like it, thrive on fear, not facts, peddling panic to the masses while the 1% pocket the proceeds. 

So, next time you’re told to eat bugs to save the Earth, ask why Klaus Schwab’s still eating steak. The planet might warm, but the real heat’s coming from the great green grift burning a hole in our wallets.

Like all the movements prior, environmentalism has been long co-opted and transformed into yet another get rich scheme for the already wealthy.

If they were truly green, they would give up their riches and adopt voluntary simplicity, and how many of them that you know of are currently doing that?

Leading by example is a solid principle. People watch what you do more closely than what you say. Action has more impact than words.

Is the real existential threat a changing climate, or is it the grift and power grab of governments and the one percenters?









September 10, 2025

Calmcation + Quitcation = Simplification





A calmcation sounds kind of nice - a vacation where you actually get what a vacation was always supposed to give you - rest and relaxation so you can return to the grind feeling refreshed and ready to increase productivity for the benefit of shareholders. 

I am partial to staycations, but a calmcation is definitely preferred if the alternative is a busycation. 




The simple life can be a constant calmcation compared to a chaotic consumer life. It is a staycation that provides all the peace and calm that one would need, right where you are at. 

Calmcationers seek quiet and tranquility while on holiday, and travel providers are going with that until the next trend hits. They are putting together pre-made packages to spoon feed rattled workers on the brink of burnout.





It is a good idea, but if serenity, mindfulness, and being present are goals, getting off the treadmill permanently to craft a simpler life is an option that can be considered.

You could call it a Quitcation. 

That was the brand of break Linda and I took 25 years ago, after starting with a one year long sabbatical/calmcation (except we called it escaping the rat race) during which we traveled the world. After that it turned into a two year sabbatical so we could extend our epic calmcation, and when that ended, it turned into a quitcation to pursue the simple life more ardently.






Not that we never needed to work again, but since we left on this journey, we have been working to live, rather than living to work. That alone changed our entire perspective on life.

Stress levels returned to healthy, manageable levels as soon as unnecessary striving and struggling was eliminated. 




Begin with a calmcation to restore your peace, embrace a quitcation to break free, and transform that solace from modern life’s chaos into a lasting sanctuary in simplicity.

It worked for us, and it can work for you, too.

As Lily Tomlin said, ''for fast acting relief, try slowing down.''