I KNOW THAT IT WOULD BE UNTRUE to suggest that all of the leaders of the soi-disant G8 nations, accompanied by their token developing-nation chums the G5, are a bunch of hypocrites, but I have a tendency to suspect that their recently-found zeal over global warming is nothing more than a smoke screen in front of the fire in which they have their own political irons white hot.
“THE TIME TO HESITATE IS OVER”, stated Gordon Brown and Barack Obama yesterday in unison, in an almost direct quotation from Robby Krieger’s The Doors song, “now we must act on reducing carbon emissions.” This, of course, is all well and good on paper, but France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, the USA and particularly China and India, six of the 8 and 2 of the 5, have doubled their production of private cars over the last five years, and when one considers that the population of these eight nations is close to three-quarters of the G13 population then these words ring less than honest.
“IF THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is,” Blake tells us in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, yet, alas, they are not cleansed to the eyes and ears of the increasing majority of people who really believe that an increase in temperature of two degrees centigrade would plunge us into the fires of hell and also truly accept that our leaders believe this and are doing something about it.
THE REAL TRUTH OF THE MATTER is that talking about global warming billows smoke into the eyes of those who would otherwise see among the G13 leaders massive financial mismanagement, corruption on a scale that beggars belief, government investment in ludicrous armament plans, personal lack of decency, self-serving attitudes with our money, huge disinvestment in health and education, and political and social repression. While these issues are kept on a back burner, then it is our personal well-being and happiness that can become a funeral pyre, not the planet.
“THE TIME TO HESITATE IS OVER”, stated Gordon Brown and Barack Obama yesterday in unison, in an almost direct quotation from Robby Krieger’s The Doors song, “now we must act on reducing carbon emissions.” This, of course, is all well and good on paper, but France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, the USA and particularly China and India, six of the 8 and 2 of the 5, have doubled their production of private cars over the last five years, and when one considers that the population of these eight nations is close to three-quarters of the G13 population then these words ring less than honest.
“IF THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is,” Blake tells us in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, yet, alas, they are not cleansed to the eyes and ears of the increasing majority of people who really believe that an increase in temperature of two degrees centigrade would plunge us into the fires of hell and also truly accept that our leaders believe this and are doing something about it.
THE REAL TRUTH OF THE MATTER is that talking about global warming billows smoke into the eyes of those who would otherwise see among the G13 leaders massive financial mismanagement, corruption on a scale that beggars belief, government investment in ludicrous armament plans, personal lack of decency, self-serving attitudes with our money, huge disinvestment in health and education, and political and social repression. While these issues are kept on a back burner, then it is our personal well-being and happiness that can become a funeral pyre, not the planet.
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