Wake up. It's Monday. The sun's on the right. Home rooms, the place where we sharpen our minds. Grab your coffee and don't book your pen. Home room, home room. Let's do it again.
Whoo. They're like, what's that? Hey, come on. I love that. It is still what's busted pencils fully-led education talk educated educators talking education.
Jacob chairman of the board, me, Dr. Tim Slecker in the house, Johnny Lupinati, you know, given him a little bit of R and R for this home room.
Um, you know, probably his, uh, curing is not working. He didn't have his coffee. So Jacob, you know, we said, hey, you know what?
Until somebody fixes that curing machine, Johnny, we're going to excuse you from home room for now. What do you think?
I think that's completely fair, Tim. And as we talked about on, I believe it was producer, producer's choice last week, Johnny's working on some of those throat exercises to improve his voice and make sure he doesn't throw it out and so often. So we're trying to give him some time to recuperate before class in session.
Yeah, in the case anybody forgets those are when he has to go me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. Okay. We're me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Oh my god, Jacob. Those are the good ones where you really get up into that high range.
Yeah. That's when I, um, I'll crap. I forget what they call that one. When you hit that high note, um, I was going to say stiletto, but, um, falsetto. Maybe fall. There you go.
Think about. Yeah. I watch. I'm going to hit my stiletto tune tone right there. No. Yes.
You pinch my foot into a nice small stiletto than I hit a falsetto. That's a falsetto. Nice. Nice. Nice. That's Jacob. You know what?
On this home rune though, I just, I started thinking I'm like, you know, a lot of times we're just kind of like getting loosened up ready for the week.
Um, I'm going to stay in that, you know, in that same type of attitude, you know, easing in, but, um, also thinking boy, maybe it's a good opportunity to kind of go.
What the heck is going on in Greenland that president Trump want. I mean, what is it? What's attractive about it? What's going on? Why Greenland? I mean, why are we talking about an invasion force?
Um, or maybe not an invasion force, maybe just cold cash, um, Greenland Jacob. What do you know about Greenland, my friend?
Tim, as you know, one of the big issues in the world today is energy and energy costs. And we've went into Venezuela for, for their oil, their precious oil.
And the big thing is whale blubber. And that's the, that's the future. You know, we have all these pesky woke laws about the environment.
Oh, you can't bring out whales anymore to power your, your lanterns. President Trump's getting rid of those unnecessary regulations and bringing us back to a more pure time somewhere around 1824, where the whale blubbers how we're going to run things. That's as best as I can figure it.
Okay, bring whale oil back. Make whale blubber great again. Great again. Yes. Love that love that love that. Yeah, because who doesn't miss lighting their whale oil lamp.
I know I do. I'm thinking about that all the time. I mean, I wake up in the middle of the night. I got to go, you know, to the bathroom to pee. And I'm like, where is my whale oil lamp?
Well, as you point out, you know, woke environmentalists and stuff, you know, have told me, I don't have my own freedom to use my own whale blubber or whale oil lamp.
Exactly. If sleepy Joe Biden had his way to him, we'd be using a flashlight with batteries instead of an incredibly dangerous unstable whale blubber based lantern as you walk through your house at night. That, that sounds way better to me.
Yeah, I think about that. Oh, my goodness. But, you know, coming back to this, I think it's one of these real answers to your question.
Yeah, I know they're real. No, this is great because, you know, typically when we enter into a conversation like this with Dr. Johnny Lupinati here, he gets very confused because he has a hard time knowing whether or not we're joking or as he points out, he's not very good at catching the sarcasm.
Even though I'm pretty sure that proclaiming our right to be free to use whale oil to light our way is pretty significantly over the top enough to go.
They can't be serious. Can they? But Johnny, that's the, I mean, Tim, that's the thing about Johnny. He's just that sincere of a person. He's a very sincere person. So he doesn't, you know, he can't do sarcasm like you and I with our cold black hearts.
You know, we just spit out these jokes, but Johnny really, you know, he believes that he feels it.
But, you know, but okay, yeah, Johnny, and we love you, man, but, um, come on, man, get the sarcasm. Well, I really, I believe Jacob and I really mean Greenland though. I mean, there's a lot of talk. People saying we want it. We want to buy it. We want to invade it.
You know, why what do we know about Greenland? What's the, you know, my little thing. What's the history of Greenland? I would love to know more.
What would we like to know about Greenland? You know, why Greenland? Why is it called Greenland? Has anybody ever been there?
There's not a whole lot of the color green in Greenland. I wonder if there's some sort of parable you can tell us about that makes playing that story.
Well, it's just one of those interesting things. And you know, we'll be talking about this because, um, you know, we have an Iceland. All right. And it would seem potentially if we look at the weather patterns in Iceland and Greenland.
That somebody just made a mistake naming the countries when we drew, you know, one of our western influence maps because, you know, Greenland's kind of frozen most of the time.
So it's kind of like Iceland and Iceland actually has some seasonal phases with, with, you know, some green kind of rolling planes.
But so where did that come from Jacob? You know, that's what we're talking about here. Greenland, the history of Greenland.
And, uh, to situate that, I was going to, you know, kind of say Jacob. So what do you know about the history of Greenland? Because I am here to work as your Oracle of wisdom of truth to hopefully either confirm your thoughts about Greenland or, you know, maybe get into a little bit of, uh, Jacob, hold on a minute. Did you know?
That's what you do for me every day here on this show, Tim. And that's why I'm so grateful to be your producer. You know, I've learned a lot from you.
Uh, I always learned from Johnny and his sincerity. But on the topic of Greenland, I do know that it was settled by the Vikings. I know that, um, I, they came over after exploring quotes exploring Ireland a bit.
Uh, and England and, and that whole area over there, uh, moved to Iceland. There were settlements in Iceland. It moved to Greenland. You have settlements in Greenland. And that's how famously Lee Therrickson becomes the first European to get to the North American continent. He does that because the Vikings have been moving steadily in that direction. And then he goes from Greenland.
I believe Nova Scotia. So really Greenland is a big part of the history of North America.
Western colonization at its finest. Well, it went really poorly though. So I guess. Yeah. Okay. You know, lots there. But yeah, lots going on. You know, and you bring up an important name, Lee Farrickson. Um, you know, what though?
There's another important name, Eric, the red, uh, Eric, the red. You bring in some important countries. Yeah. Iceland, um, England, Ireland, lots going on with the Vikings, the Vikings. And so the first question, then Jacob is so
was it the Vikings? Then who discovered Greenland?
Uh, good question, Tim. I don't, I, well, you can't say that they discovered Greenland because I do believe, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the, the Inuit peoples were already in Greenland when the Vikings arrived, though, of course, they're both in pretty small numbers due to the very inhospitable nature of Greenland. So those first contacts were kind of, you know, you expect the newcomers to come in and find a lot of people. It was actually pretty small groups on both sides hanging out.
Plus gigantic landmass. So I don't think they ran into each other every single day. Yeah, you know, they weren't across the street from each other. I think that's fair to say.
They were not in the same school district. Yes. Yes. You know, you know, they had to get on a bus to go and play that Friday night football game.
So you would have to take a nice bus with plenty of oarsmen and get on over to the neighboring school district. Yeah.
But yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, yeah, this is the first thing right discovered it's it's one of those words that can be kind of tricky. And so when it comes to Greenland, it's like, well, who discovered Greenland, it's like, well, actually truth be told, as best we can tell the discovery.
Well, we don't really know when, but as best we can tell the early occupants of Greenland probably were there almost 2000 years before Eric the red.
Late his eyes on that prime real estate called Greenland.
That's a pretty, that's a pretty big jump they had on old Eric the red. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a couple thousand years.
So it's one of those things that gone like, you know, when you guys write this down, we already knew we were here.
Absolutely. Yeah, for the people who are already in Greenland, I bet it was kind of odd to hear that they had been discovered.
Yes. I think that when we say discovered, I think there is still a purpose or usefulness or utility if you want to put it in any of those terms to saying that because it is the moment at which this history of Greenland enters the continuum of knowledge that you and I are currently part of the story of how much you and I know about Greenland begins with that moment where the old and new worlds came together.
That's how, you know, we enter this space where the archaeologists now learn about the 2000 year history of the Inuit peoples. I mean, it's a it's a big.
Neil the grass Tyson, I remember once said that he thought that Columbus, quote unquote, discovering the new world is a pretty darn big deal where you had two civilizations multiple civilizations, but sort of these worlds developing for thousands of thousands of years and finally they come together.
For good and for a lot of bad, but it's pretty darn momentous part of history and obviously Greenland big part of that too.
Well, and you're pointing out something really, you know, understand too of this whole thing of memory of the past is a cultural thing, right?
You know, you're when when Western European, in this case, Eric the Red and Viking, you know, the Western culture of writing things down of telling stories, although honestly, no, this is where it's going to get a little tricky.
Eric the Red and that group of Vikings, they weren't so good at writing stuff down either.
Sure, yeah.
They really they really weren't, but it's interesting around that time that the Vikings finally come on to the scene in European history.
If you're sitting in France, I don't know how big a distinction the French king makes between the Scandinavian tribesmen up in Norway versus the Inuit tribesmen in Greenland in that perspective of the time.
How different are these guys from from where we now have our biases to judge, oh, this is European, this is Greenland.
Yeah, those Vikings, oh my god, those Vikings, good goodness.
But yeah, so there we are. So, you know, as best we can tell in you, it's discover how they discover, you know, now we're getting into really, really quote ancient history and the migration of the modern humans across, you know, quote, out of Africa, across Asia and those movements and as best we can tell how they are.
But, you know, and at some point, a one of those migrations ends up with a group that, you know, again, we, we refer to them as the Inuit people.
But, you know, Jacob, thinking about that, you know, 2000 roughly years before Eric the red, all right.
Okay, Jacob, question, how long were the Vikings in Greenland?
Oh, that's a fantastic question to him. I know that the settlements in Iceland were a lot more successful and that that has been much more continuous.
But for Greenland, I think it was pretty, pretty brief that they were actually living in Greenland. I'm going to guess, I'm going to guess 40 years, 40 years of Vikings the first time.
Okay, actually you're really, really low.
Yeah, yeah, from the idea of quote settlement of, you know, Eric the red, which is, you know, somewhere in the 900s, mid 900s.
Actually, there was continuous Viking colony on Greenland up through almost the 1400s.
Wow. Okay. So I was about 10 times too short on that one.
I was going to say one more zero, Jacob, you had it. Yeah, Vikings actually existed for about 400 years there. So about 400 years, which brings up the question, what happened?
That is a good question. Now my, my guess is going to be Greenland as we've established is not green.
And it's a hard place to live. So I can see theoretically how that might not have panned out perfectly the first attempt.
But tell me, I mean, then again, it lasted for 400 years the first time. So interesting, right?
Yeah, because you know, I think you're got to say 40 years feels about right because it's like, you know, it's tough there. However, you know, now we got to get into geography and geosciences.
And looking at the patterns of weather and climate and actually, you know, through all of those ways, whether we're checking, you know,
sludge at the bottom of frozen ponds, ice samples and stuff, actually can do a pretty darn good job of saying, here's what the weather was like in 900.
Here's what it was like in, you know, 1100. And um, actually what the best we can say is that when the Vikings did show up in the southern part of Greenland.
Um, there was a bit of and for all the people out there who are going to go like, see, I told you the climate had been warm, warmer than normal.
So that actually the modes of survival that the Vikings quote, when they come to colonize, right?
What are they bringing when they colonize? They're bringing their own cultural understandings of how to live.
And guess what that is? Farming. Yeah, yeah, far more.
And you know, and raising livestock. And so to be able to do that successfully, um, actually bring up the point there had to have been a better climate.
And from what we can tell climate scientists can say that, you know, around that time there was a warming period and there would have been enough growing season time to actually maintain a small colony with some agriculture and the ability to continue to raise livestock.
Um, and if you think about it for the Vikings coming from Norway and Sweden.
It doesn't have to be that hot in Greenland for for them to work. It just has to be warm enough, you know, warm by Greenland standards to enter that sweet spot where a Viking civilization can exist.
And then it doesn't take much to move out of those degrees of temperature where it doesn't work anymore.
There you go. And so, um, yeah, I mean, they did not come up from Miami, Florida to Greenland. Yes.
You know, like these speedos aren't going to work, Leaf. Yes. Absolutely.
But, but yeah, and so, but now think again, so Jacob, then what happened after 400 years?
I believe it's something we call the little ice age to him.
You are. My God.
You are so smart on this Monday home room morning, only on Monday mornings. Yes. That's right.
I try to cram it all into the beginning of the week and then the video games to grade me as the week goes on.
So, but, but you're like climate science, you can look at and go, oh, guess what?
That whole farming gig that you guys were doing.
Ain't working anymore.
And in fact, some of the excavations into the settlements in Greenland, particularly when they go into what we would refer to as the garbage dumps.
I mean, guess what? People in the past had to throw stuff away too.
Yep.
You know, they just didn't have a truck coming up and picking it up in the can and taking it somewhere else.
And it's to get buried right away, which allows it to be preserved.
Unlike, you know, if there's a house left over, it just falls apart over time.
The trash ends up being preserved. That's dressed being preserved.
And so, when it comes to that, you know, guess what?
The Vikings ate.
There's a pretty good archeological record over the years showing.
And in fact, confirming stuff didn't go so well there towards the last hundred years because, yeah, those first couple hundred years.
And in those garbage pits, lots of pig bones, lots of sheep bones, stuff like that.
They were, they were eaten like Vikings like to eat, Jacob, kind of like RFK junior says we should be eating now.
Lots of meat.
And to put that in an American perspective for our listeners, because I know we have a lot of American listeners.
Imagine the golden corral.
That's how Vikings like to eat.
That's it, you know, and they were going, but over time.
And in fact, right towards.
And there's a great book by Jared Diamond.
I know a lot of it's being disputed at some point, some of his stuff, but this Viking stuff is still pretty good.
Is is that their civilization, quote, collapsed.
And we can see that collapse as you're looking forward.
Is is that by the end.
What little meat there was.
Was in the form of rodent bones.
Or and for people are like, oh, so they ate squirrels.
No, we're talking about the smallest of rodents.
The humble field mouse.
Of which the humble field mouse itself was also gone.
There's not a whole lot of field going on right now in this many.
Exactly.
Now things are not good when you don't even have any more field mice eat.
Right.
That's when you start to say, I guess maybe I'll go back to Denmark.
We're that might be better than this.
We're out.
We're out here.
But you know, but Jacob, here's again, they'll go.
But who didn't collapse and who didn't have to leave Greenland.
I'm going to guess the Inuit peoples of Greenland, Tim.
How did they do that?
I've got an idea.
Okay, go for it.
I'm going to guess that because of what we talked about at the beginning of this conversation,
which was Greenland's a big sparse place.
And they're not really intermingling too much.
I'm going to say the Inuit peoples lifestyles didn't change that much from before the warming period
till after the warming period.
And so they were still equipped for Greenland life.
Yeah.
And remember, for 2000 years, they had figured it out.
Yeah.
You know, and one of the things that they figured out was, don't farm.
Big mistake.
If there's no good soil and it's freezing all the time, maybe stick to the hunting and gathering.
Yeah, don't farm hunting gathering and actually though to meet a very, you know, again,
but a different kind, right?
So again, you know, now you're going back into but eating lots of sea animals, seals.
And in fact, you know, a lot of historians say and point out that more than anything,
it wasn't necessarily even the many ice age that caused the Viking civilization to collapse.
It was what you said.
It was their inability to remove their European cultural ways of living and adapt.
Because when it comes to eating meat, seal meat does not cut it if you're a good Viking.
And by the 1400s, you are European.
Now Christianity is fully going on.
And so, but yeah, just a refusal to adapt to the way the Inuit had been there for 2000 years.
And so that idea across cultural understanding did not happen.
And I think that another contributing factor to the refusal to adapt is as long as your civilization has remembered
longboat technology with an express pass back to Denmark if things don't pan out, then you say,
well, am I going to change everything that I believe in or am I going to just go back to the home country there?
Yeah, maybe if you're stuck in Greenland, then you're like, well, you guys seem to know what you're doing.
I'm going to start doing that instead.
Yeah.
Yeah. So, I mean, so this is kind of the cool stuff.
So 1400s or so Europeans, Vikings gone, Inuit's there, chilling, hanging, doing what Inuit do best,
which is live in a place that they had lived for thousands of years.
And we're perfectly.
I'm sure probably pretty darn happy when, you know, Eric, the Reds, great, great, great, great people left.
Probably.
I assume so.
I really don't know.
I'm not an expert in the relations between the Greenlanders and the Inuit back in the 1400s.
But knowing that I do, I think humans usually don't get along great.
The best cultural kind of, you know, potential mixing was that the walrus.
And what was it about the walrus that the Vikings liked?
Not the walrus meat, Jacob.
Oh, I have a guess.
Okay.
Is it the walrus tusk, Tim?
Is it that awesome walrus tusk?
Because I can see that coming on a hat.
I agree.
Right there.
I agree, Jacob.
There was actually, and this was one of the contributing factors to the early success of Viking Greenland is there is a pretty lucrative ivory trade.
Sure.
Going on.
And, you know, that along with the, you know, warming climate that they were experiencing where they could grow.
I did the reefs and maintain a, you know, livestock.
They also had an economic advantage in that they were exporting ivory and bringing in capital with that tilma.
I would, I wondered, Tim, also with something like the ivory trade of walrus.
Given what I know about North American Bison, or other situations where groups come in who are not native to this area, and start eating different animals,
or harvesting them for, for parts, that did not go well for the bison.
I wonder how the, the walrus population was doing there during this time.
That might be another home room that we're going to have to spend some time.
Let's get a walrus expert in here next week.
But, you know, and Jacob, but here's the other thing though, right?
Another contributing factor was though darn capitalism, because guess what?
When goods are heavily wanted and you're selling them, you're happy.
Yeah.
But just like a market economy, sometimes what you're selling that's awesome, all of a sudden people go, hey, we don't want that anymore.
I have a hard time believing that anybody ever didn't want a crazy tusk Viking helmet.
But, you know, I guess people's tastes change over the years.
But yeah, I mean, you know, there's evidence that the ivory market collapsed also in Europe.
So the Vikings, yeah, they're gone.
They're still there.
They're doing what they do.
And so what is next for Trump's favorite island, Jacob?
I think we go to the 1400s and then American Vades in 2026, right?
That's sort of the, that's the trend of the history of Greenland.
Or I think it went back to the Inuit population entirely as an island for a while.
And then I think Tim, tell me, is it to Spain claim Greenland briefly?
And he goes poorly and then the Danes come home or what?
You know, especially maybe you know, probably Spain, you know, European kind of dabbling going on.
It makes too cold heck with this.
But Denmark in the 1700s does recolonize Greenland.
And you know, mostly through Christian missionaries.
And though the sustainability of Greenland now was much easier.
It was also to not a thriving colony that they were going to, you know, overpopulate.
And so bringing in the needed resources from all of the other European countries.
Because by the 1700s, Jacob, the, the Danes, their European.
Yes.
Yeah.
The Danes come back.
They're the Europeans.
And the interesting thing about Greenland versus Iceland, which I think we associate so heavily together,
Iceland is like 85% European descended Viking descended people in Greenland.
And that's Iceland.
Sorry.
But Greenland is overwhelmingly still indigenous Inuit people in Greenland.
It's a big contrast between these two places.
Probably having to do with the same thing that has always had to do with Greenland,
which is the inhospitibility for people who aren't from there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so, but I mean, you know, but so over that time and really actually another, you know,
300 years or so 1700s through the 1900s.
It's a small Danish colony with, you know, an Inuit local population.
But, you know, at some point though,
in the 40s, in the 30s, something breaks out in Europe, Jacob.
Colorado.
No.
Oh, no.
Oh, something else.
Yes.
Are we talking about World War two Tim?
Yeah.
World war stuff goes down.
Yeah.
Stuff goes down.
And, you know, and if people go, it's like Denmark.
What happens to Denmark early on in the late 30s into the 40s?
Denmark is occupied by the Nazis.
Yes.
And those Nazis, well, they had their eyes on Greenland also, Jacob.
They had their eyes on Iceland and Greenland.
And we, the United States had a similar approach to dealing with both of those potential problems.
Yeah.
And so this is, you know, so when does the US get involved in Greenland?
It's, it's in World War two.
You know, so our first, is it a claim or our first experience with Greenland?
When I say, are the United States hour, I should say, is World War two.
And there's some air bases because what is it about Greenland that is important for America at that time?
There's like oil in it.
Strategy strategic location of Greenland in this global conflict.
And so America's investment in Greenland in World War two is largely militarily.
And setting up the ability to, you know, be able to potentially use Greenland as either a launching place,
or also as a place to understand when maybe you America might be being targeted too, right?
Especially in World War two, it's not hard to see how a big island in the North Atlantic may be strategically placed
when the United States is trying to send supplies to the UK through the North Atlantic.
You can imagine why it was feared that, oh, what if the Germans get their hands on Iceland and Greenland?
Now they're right in the middle of those shipping lanes.
It could be a big deal.
That's the primary World War two situation.
And so anyway, we evaded them.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, what happened?
Hey, we did not ask the Inuit and the few Danish colonists that we didn't ask.
Yeah.
We didn't ask.
We just did what we do.
We show up.
But, you know, I just want to also just make another point.
One of the biggest fears to World War two is that also a Nazi stronghold in those areas is the potential jumping off point for an invasion of America.
Sure.
Yeah.
You know, because I mean, you know, let's be honest.
Hitler.
He was going after everything pretty much.
I don't want to be controversial here, Tim, but Hitler bad guy.
I'm saying, you know, I'm not going to miss words.
He was a world dominator or wanted to be.
Want to be attempted world dominator.
Want to be a world dominator.
And so Jacob, you know, but after World War two, it kind of, you know, the next significant milestone in Greenland's history.
Throwing it out to you, Jacob.
Geez, Tim.
I don't know.
Is it the Cold War?
There you go, my friend.
Cold War.
You know, and what a great place to have a Cold War.
In Greenland.
Yes.
You're right.
Absolutely right, Tim.
I wonder if the Cold War got its name from Green.
No, don't go down that crazy myth.
Yeah, Cold War.
Nuclear all that, you know, stuff like that, but.
So, so here we are.
It's, it's, we're looking at Greenland and into the Cold War and then.
However, in the.
Let's jump to the 70 something uniquely significant happens to Greenland.
Because even during all this time, Denmark does claim and or have ownership.
If that's an appropriate word of Greenland.
Yes.
It's a, it's a colony of Denmark.
It's a colony.
Yeah, it's colony of Denmark.
But Denmark does something unique in the 70s.
And what is that Tim?
Autonomy, Jacob.
Autonomy.
Greenland.
Yes.
Still part of the kingdom of Denmark.
That would be a whole other show because I'd love to know where else the kingdom of Denmark is outside of Denmark.
I think there's some parts in the Caribbean.
Okay.
Yeah.
You know what?
Actually, I've seen the Danish flag when I was down, what down there one time.
Yep.
Thank you, Jacob.
But, you know, sell for all and then the property.
But as you point out, too, Jacob, when we're talking about the population of Greenland.
It is still, though, even though there is, you know, a Danish quote presence.
The population is largely Inuit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Inuit.
Interestingly, you know, from some genealogical, you know, research.
A decent amount of Inuit do have some Danish genetic markers.
Which is probably to be expected considering that for the last 1100 years, the Danes in Inuit have been interacting on Greenland.
Every so.
Yeah.
Every so often that Friday night football game might end up in under the bleachers with a couple of Danes in Inuits together.
You never know.
You never know.
When people get together, you never know what happens.
Yeah.
You never know what happens.
And, and, and, you know, that's that kind of it.
And it's kind of sat there and they were sent in.
And so now.
The question is, why Greenland now, why does our president want Greenland?
I mean, why would he make invasion statements and then buying statements?
What is it about Greenland?
Because Jacob.
It's interesting though here.
I'm going to bring this back because it's kind of funny because here's a connection going back all the way to Eric the red.
Way back way back Eric the red was probably.
You know, he was, we didn't even do the history.
Pretty bad dude.
You know, he got kicked out of Iceland in which you have any idea how bad you have to be.
Yeah.
To get kicked out of Iceland.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Or the 900.
And it goes in Iceland back.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If you broke those rules of what you said, you know, the Vikings used to say what happens in Iceland?
Staying in Iceland.
And they kicked Eric out.
And even, yeah, Eric the red.
But you know, his idea in getting to in in his, you know, getting kicked out going to Greenland comes back with the marketing strategy.
And as best we can tell whether it's culture or true or myth or whether the sagas that were written 250 years later about the history of Eric the red.
Again, you know, how much is absolute true fact.
But it was a real estate marketing deal.
And why and this goes back why the name Greenland.
Some speculation is is that that would make it more attractive for more settlers.
However, there's also more now to saying, well, and actually where the Vikings in southern Greenland landed during that climate warming.
It kind of was green.
True.
Yeah.
Um, but it was a real estate scam.
As some people say.
And so to me, it's ironic.
I think I see what tree.
Yeah.
That the new passion to acquire Greenland is by a real estate mogul.
Who probably believes it's green.
I'm not, I don't know what's in his mind.
But I can see a slogan from 900.
Duping our great dear leader in Washington.
Tim, I think you might be right about that.
I think you might be absolutely right about the motivation.
I know that I know what the president says the motive is.
And I know what the likely motivations really are.
But that might be it.
Yeah.
So here we are.
Man, really long.
People are like, home room is really long today.
Hey, sometimes, you know what?
First period can wait.
Well, this is a home room and history class this week.
It's a home room and history class.
Um, but here we are selling up.
But you know, there is a kind of.
Okay.
Is it strategic military again?
Strategic.
What happened in Venezuela?
Oh, you know, people are like, hey, is.
Is this current administration, even though it said it was an anti imperialist.
Anti, you know, kind of trying to expand the empire.
Is actually a new expansion of the empire actually moving forward.
You know, lots of success in Venezuela.
Hey, we might as well go up there.
I kind of like what I, I just saw recently, which is, um, actually, you know,
what's in again, the parallel is kind of weird.
But you know, what's making Greenland attractive again?
Tim, I think I know the answer to this one.
Okay.
Come on.
Is it climate change?
Yes.
Jacob.
Yes.
Just think about it.
People can go back to Greenland and start farming sheep and pigs again.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And there was a little bit of sarcasm there.
Yeah.
Nobody's looking to go there to start farming.
However, this climate warming is creating a revealing of, wow.
There's some pretty cool stuff under this melting ice.
Tim, it may have, you know, we, we like to think that colonialism came to an end.
Because we all realize that colonialism was wrong.
But maybe we ran out of land for people to go plant flags and, and now that climate change
is thawing Greenland, it turns out we're not all so high and mighty as we thought we were.
We're rushing to claim Greenland now that it might be a giant.
I believe it's two thirds of the size of India, this island in the North Atlantic sea, which
apparently someday might be livable, right?
Might be livable, but right now lots of rare earth minerals and actually Greenland always
was, you know, people knew oil did exist, but with the, you know, the thawing of the ice
sheet, access to those minerals, oil resources is, once again, so a thriving Western capitalist
economy is now in everybody's kind of I, because actually let's be honest, it's not
just President Trump, who's eyeballing Greenland.
China has been making overtones at Greenland.
Russia has been making overtones at Greenland.
What is, what are those reasons?
I go on a bet that all three us included are not looking to make sure that the
EU would continue to thrive as the only successful population to occupy that real estate.
Tim, this idea of the United States acquiring Greenland in some fashion has existed for
longer than Donald Trump has been pitching it.
It's come up before.
The reason for it is those raw, rare earth minerals, those new pastures for beautiful American
sheep to graze, and it's also about the opening up of shipping lanes in the North Atlantic
and the Arctic sea, which if the ice melts, now ships can get through and it becomes
a more strategically valuable place.
You know what, I'm going to tell you, my dark secret, Tim, I would be in favor of gaining
Greenland to the United States if not through invading it, but asking them nicely if they
would like to someday and becoming good friends and maybe, you know, it's like the EU.
Greenland, would you like to join a thing with us?
Maybe and we'll be nice friendly democracies together?
I don't think that's happening now Tim.
I think we're, we have pushed Greenland.
Greenland will join China before it becomes part of the United States at this point.
He is ruined.
It's like, you know, I like Canada and I've been to Canada so many times and I think Canada
is great and I thought, well, someday, why don't we someday get, you know, let's, let's
make this official Canada.
But now, no way, now everybody who is not living here and along those who are living here,
like that place is not on the right track.
So well, no, thank you.
So the story of Greenland, really long story goes back 2000 years, Tim, with the Inuit
people first arriving there going to Eric the Red and now Donald the Orange trying to
follow up on that brave legacy of colonizing Greenland.
So just remember Jacob, it's always been about real estate, my friend.
Eric the Red must have read art of the deal, I think, basically.
I think so.
So there you go.
So this home room, who knew Eric the Red and Donald the Trump, Donald the Trump, Donald
Trump and Eric the Red, you know, two guys, what seems to be cut from the same cloth
right there.
You know, just just trying to expand that real estate portfolio, man.
So Jacob, you know, with that, now it's time for your moment of sin.
Why do we have to be a military superpower?
Hmm, why can't we be a humanitarian superpower?
Hey there, pencil busters.
Thanks for listening to this Monday home room edition of busted pencils.
Don't forget to check out class and session on Wednesday, producer's choice on Friday,
and of course, you can always find us every Saturday across the civic media network for
one hour of your favorite blue collar scholars, Tim Johnny and Jacob, and keep bustin' pencils.