#2988 "Sunny Side of Life"

#2988 "Sunny Side of Life"
20 (height) X 16 (width) and 0.750 (3/4) profile (inches).
Started 9:30 am Tuesday, December 2nd, 2025

Wintry weather was going to dominate conditions on the following day, a Tuesday, so I planned ahead by looking for untapped sunflower fodder. This is the Studio version of the plein air #2419 "September Sunflower". I just wanted to have some fun. 

Themes need to be in groups of at least three, and this painting would complete the trio, including #2986 and #2987. The photographic inspiration was taken on September 15th, 2020, at 14:23 pm; also a Tuesday. 

These particular blooms were also featured in other works from various angles included within the collage below: #2420 "In the Shade of the Sunflower", #2421 "Sunflowers Turned to the Sun"; #2933 "Sunflowers Endure",   #2934 "Sunflower Bouquet for a Winter Day", and #2935 "September Sunflower Reflections"

We planted three sunflower seeds in the COVID spring of 2020. Chipmunks got two of them, but the survivor turned into a giant worthy of Jack and the Beanstalk. A tape measure had it at ten feet tall, and it still grew a few inches after that. A support tied to an adjacent boulder prevented it from being blown over by the onshore Singleton winds. 

Vincent would have loved to paint those flowers. I know I did. I used a canvas I stretched on a frame built by my Dad. My goal is to use all of those frames he constructed before I head for the big easel in the sky... my Dad was a special person!

Part of my philosophy, inspired by my parents, is to try to live on the "sunny side of life", which is the title for this expression of nature. See the good in nature and people. As my Dad told me as a kid, "Only worry about yourself"; do not concern yourself with the deeds of others, no matter how greedy, criminal or hypocritical they might be. 

Sometimes I still struggle, especially when I leave the Singleton Sanctuary or pay attention to the news. 

For example, climate change has never been so obvious after years of record-smashing heat, drought, floods, wildfires and storms. Species are going extinct daily due to human activities. Nature, science and even art are under attack. This sounds very much like Armageddon; the last battle between good and evil before the Day of Judgment.

Teetering off the delicate knife-edge of the fragile atmospheric balance is catastrophic, far beyond anyone's comprehension. That might be the problem!  

No one has witnessed what the Earth is about to endure. Fright for the future might be central in the lives of people around the globe. Fear is a destructive emotion that encourages people to abandon rationality and focus on their immediate survival rather than long-term good. Politicians are wilfully dumb and blind to everything beyond four years into the future. Where is the wisdom or leadership in that?  Rage follows, and that emotion is being harnessed by populist politicians. 

Greed is another powerful emotion. The lust for more and even more by corporations that profit from fossil fuels has pushed the Earth over the brink. Greed also fuels power, and power corrupts. Scientists around the globe have taken up that challenge, so there is no need for me to repeat the facts here. 

My decades of PowerPoint presentations and blogs about the science of climate change have been futile. Governments could have acted, but have been quite inadequate and self-serving. The "war on science" continues to rage, and not just in the United States! The war on Canadian science started quietly in the 70s and then ramped up in the 90s. Programs were designed to fail, opening the door for numerical solutions and now AI. I witnessed it happen.

The United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) has been discussing and negotiating climate change since 1995. Dithering with nil positive impact is a good description - see the upper left portion of the following graphic. COP30, held in November 2025 in Belém, Brazil, "required" building a four-lane highway through the Amazon forest... Insanity? Madness! The final outcome from COP30 did not even mention the fossil fuel elephant in the room, and there was no agreement on binding commitments. 

Upon reflection, the facts of the Industrial Revolution are even more disturbing. Science has only been in political favour and encouraged when it supported corporate interests. In fact, those in power have always been at war with any science that did not align with their personal gain. Think about that!

May I digress with a personal example of science under attack! 

Being naturally curious was one of my curses. There were many innovations I wished to explore while employed as a meteorologist. "Project Time" to do so was severely limited in a government department which was always being underfunded and downsized. My manager devised an auction-based bidding system required to apply for the chance to conduct creative, original research. One had to demonstrate potential gains (economic gains preferred) that might be achieved through a minimum amount of time. Basically, knowing the result before doing the research. That is not how creativity functions. 

I worked a lot of overtime back then, especially during severe weather outbreaks. Logically, I took most overtime compensation as time off! I would appropriately use those mini-vacations to replace the time already forfeited so that I could spend it with my family and enjoy a balanced life.  I also continued research on my pet projects. Of course, there was a bonus of more time off earned with respect to hours worked. The bureaucratic bean counters had yet to figure out how to tax time off. My remedy was initially successful. I did a lot of research and also painted up a storm! Life was constructive, positive and creative. Fun!

Senior managers did not appreciate my "time off" approach to life. In fact , they hated it! That was an era of slash and burn in the public service. High-level bureaucrats devised draconian measures to address my rogue tendencies. Combating those actions was futile, as Human Resources typically sides with their employer. One happy exception was my successful efforts to achieve maternity benefits for males in the Atmospheric Environment Service. I never benefited from Parental Leave, but those obvious inconsistencies had to be challenged!   

Much to my wife’s chagrin, my home computers ran 24/7 seeking answers to questions that intrigued me. Creativity simply can't happen if one is fearful of making a mistake. As well, the hard drive on my office cubicle computer had been maliciously "reformatted", necessitating that I had to move my research to the safety of home. My investigations had the potential to address many important issues of the day. For me, research was like play… not work at all. So I researched and studied while at the weather centre and at home.

The research was quite successful and took several branches of science into new territories. The science found support around the globe, especially in Scandinavia and Australia. For example, using raw data, my nested, modular Visual Basic code could complete a year of performance measurement in a few hours, creating 3-D verification in time and space, in consideration of the lead-time of the prediction. New applications of remote sensing data were also my forte. 

There was considerable "eye rolling" by those who could not or would not understand, having not even made the effort to read the research papers or the very simplified executive summaries. Wilful blindness, if you will. Not much has changed. 

In my naivety, I thought we were all on the same team, desiring to provide better service through science. My core belief was that the human armed with pattern recognition skills and conceptual models was an important, if not vital, part of the forecast cycle, and that the human skill could be measured by a proper performance measurement method. The value of meteorological and climatological services to the Canadian economy were far more than the pittance in the budget.

 

I became aware that my human skill centric opinion was an unpopular view in the age of computer modelling and the burgeoning field of artifical intelligence. I was unaware of any war, which made the skirmishes that much more damaging. Hard drives crashed, data sources vanished, and obstacles to research were erected. Program cuts escalated. Prime Minister Harper even forbade scientists to mention climate change. Ironically, a bureucratic autopen scrawled that name on my official retirement papers which appropriately occurred on Ground Hog Day in 2012.

Happily, retirement was just the start of an unencumbered search for the real truth, not contrained by bureucracy and predetermined results. My research blossomed, partnered with friends from COMET, NOMEK and EUMETSAT until COVID came along late in 2019. My journey of curiosity still continues, mostly alone, embracing nature. Some work remains to be published but that material may appear in my blogs or my art. The truth is always worthwhile.

Those were my experiences, and back then, the war on science became very personal. 

Remembering that science is simply the search for the truth, the above discussion can be succinctly summarized as the following, a favourite of mine, which I first used in the 1980s:

Truth is only tolerated when it serves those in power. 

The corollary of the above statement is that every truth not approved by the authoritative, big-brother bosses will be discredited and fought tooth and nail. The unsanctioned truths far outnumber those that are endorsed as a direct function of how dictatorial the leadership might be. Recall:

"abstebos is carcinogenic", 

"smoking is bad for your health", 

"liquid natural gas is not an energy solution", ... the list is sadly endless. 

My personal favourite is from March 1912 Popular Mechanics, found on page 341, 

"burning coal ... tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. This effect may be considerable in a few centuries." 

Climate science was still in its infancy more than a hundred years ago. Meteorology and other earth sciences have come a very long way since then. Correspondingly, the forecast has improved immeasurably with more data, satellite technology and a much better understanding of the many factors and feedback tipping points at play within the earth-atmosphere system. Existential impacts are occurring now as we enter the verification stage of that explicit 1912 forecast. 

Solar Photovoltaic just keeps getting better...
We also employ passive solar and solar hot water
water delivered for free to our doorstep.

Given the above, perhaps the only solution might be found in economic forces that could drive the fossil fools out of business with cheaper and better green energies. Canada could have led the way, but didn't. The harm of carbon and the potential power from the sun were "inconvenient truths" to Canadian corporations and politicians. 

There is certainly no time to waste; given the momentum of the climate, it is already too late to avoid 2.5 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels expected by 2080. The Earth will probably reach a life-ending 4 degrees Celsius higher by 2100 due to feedback mechanisms. Even moderate CO2 emissions must lead to 7°C of warming by 2200, but likely much higher... 

So I struggle with undue wealth, privilege, and a dearth of empathy. Unaccountable power wielded by self-serving and often corrupt multinational corporations and politicians is simply wrong. A few hypocritical, greedy individuals with economic and/or military power have knowingly, with intent, steered the Earth and all of nature on an uninhabitable course for many thousands of years? The unsurvivable impacts start within decades. In the battle of Armageddon, evil is beating the hell out of good.

Ultimately, nature and physics still rule. Simply, the Earth will "Ctrl-Alt-Delete" and start again with another version of life. In the last four billion years, there have been five major mass extinctions where 70% to 95% of species were wiped out.  This will be number six, and humans should be included in that roughly 80% of dead-end species. Afterall, this extinction is the direct result of human action. Maybe the mega fauna and flora will give it another go? 

My simple plan of staying home with a nil carbon footprint will not change anything. The power brokers don't care. However, we will diligently continue to directly harness the energy of the sun, plant trees and support nature within the Singleton Sanctuary. The "sunny side of life" must flourish locally, fuelled by solar radiation that passively delivers heat, electricity and hot water to the doorstep. The cold trough of the larger atmospheric flow, which is favoured over eastern Ontario as a result of climate change, will help to keep us a bit cooler for a while. Life is good for now, but it is getting much harder to laugh...   

The Pacific Energy wood stove burns outside air for combustion and is about 80% efficient.
Only dead and fallen trees are used for firewood. 

For this and much more art, click on Pixels or go straight to the Collections. Here is the new Wet Paint Collection. Thank you for reading, and stay well!

Warmest regards, and keep your paddle in the water,

Phil Chadwick