There were lots of stories over the weekend about how mad scientists wanted to block out the sun and cut down all the trees on Earth. Maybe you saw these reports, and maybe you didn’t. There is certainly much truth in these stories, but also quite a bit of exaggeration and sensationalism to drive clicks and clout. In 1989, an engineer in California suggested building a massive parasol to block solar radiation. In July of 2023, the White House was officially discussing using Solar Radiation Modification - a term chosen to distance the administration from geoengineering which calls it Solar Radiation Management - to block solar rays. The goal, of course, is to cool the planet in a short period of time. In recent weeks Kodama Systems announced that with funding from Breakthrough Energy, which is financed in part by Bill Gates, they would aim to cut down 70 million acres of Western forest and burry the trees to save the planet. Although we all know trees absorb C02, most don’t realize how much. There are now estimated to be 3-trillion trees on the planet, with 200 billion needed to eliminate all C02 produced by Americans, who have the highest energy usage. Factoring in countries that use way less energy we find that there are enough trees to certainly absorb all C02, at least theoretically. Either way, cutting them down is counterproductive. Conveniently though these millions of acres are also the exact amount needed to double soy farming in the United States, something that Gates has much more direct investment in. Nevertheless, people like Gates are without question evil and a eugenist, but he is not responsible for every problem in the world. In fact, we as individuals are much more responsible for what happens than he or any other powerful scapegoat. We live outside our means and blame it on politicians; we have poor health and blame it on the summer, a virus, or a drug; we see bad things happening and blame it on aliens. If there is an alien force at a work, it is ‘alien’ to common sense and unbiased sensibilities. The alien theory is really a new mythology, and along with theological doctrines, we are all being convinced to rely on external saviors to save us from other external threats rather than relying on ourself.