Copenhagen
Canada is sweeping the fossil awards. The world's climate-change activists, the hordes of environmental NGOs have generously endowed this country with recognition of its exceptionality, (initiated aptly by the UN's Ban Ki-Moon), given its salutary recognition to this great country where the province of Alberta has taken steps to limit carbon emissions and to impose penalties on corporations who exceed their emissions caps. And whose high-stake principals have committed themselves to greener technologies.
In extracting what has been defined as the dirtiest fossil-fuels on the Planet, that very orb that seeks to avail itself of yet greater amounts of said fuel. It's really a dirty world we live in, alas. And we're spouting those carbon-dioxide emissions heedlessly. But this is serious business, and we do, really, have to try a whole lot harder. To come to terms - despite the imbroglio of the email releases of the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia - with the reality of change and impending change deleterious to Earth and to us.
Still, it's kind of rich to see Canada singled out for contempt, in the face of an entitled-delegate country like Sudan, happily extracting oil wealth, sharing it with China with whom it has much in common, and refusing to share it with all Sudanese; those living in dire poverty and particularly Darfurians defiantly insisting on their right to share in the country's good fortunes, (just inviting the inevitable response of dislocation, rape and mass murder). Genocidal settlement of interior dissent is nowhere near as abhorrent as extracting dirty oil.
Right: apples and oranges, and they're both good nutritional choices. The celebrated Al Gore, leader of the greening of the environmental revolution, revealed unwittingly the inconvenient truth of his personal environmental footstep, belying his righteous denunciation of global corporate polluters and the advanced world's wasteful consumption of energy while global warming caused by technological advancement is set to drown the poor and the downtrodden of the world.
In Copenhagen, at the world environmental summit, representatives of about 160 countries, and far many more NGOs, concerned environmentalists and groupies will be present to hammer out their unilateral demands. This is one huge, yet solemn party where self-flagellation and exquisitely new methods of psychological torture aimed at the guilt-reflexes of advanced countries will herald the self-righteous expectations of economically-emerging countries.
Just think of all those private jets, the lavish dinners, the gorgeously appointed accommodations, the limousines idling, waiting for delegates, UN officials and NGO representatives to exit their meetings and be whisked off to other meetings, congregations, dinners. Tiny Denmark couldn't supply all the limos that were ordered, so they arrived, spewing their carbon emissions, over one thousand of them, from Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and France.
It's been published in the Times of India that India, China, South Africa and Brazil formed a power cabal to present a common front, prepared to abandon all negotiations if they feel they're being coerced into a deal that would unduly benefit the carbon-spewing developed nations. Why wouldn't they? More power to them. Of the non-CO2-spewing variety, needless to say. Which doesn't really lessen the stark reality that SOMETHING has to be agreed to, and truly accomplished.
But there's something about that United Nations involvement in this critical issue of the survival of the Earth's atmosphere as we know, love and depend upon it. There's more than a sneaking suspicion born of the intelligent mind to delve into such matters, that there is an uppermost agenda superimposed upon the environment. And that, largely, is the transfer of wealth to what was so long termed the Third World. And then, one thinks: what has happened with all those trillions of dollars that have been transferred to under-developed countries to date?
What critical advances have been made in the quality of life of people living in Africa, in Asia, in Central America, and anywhere that quality-of-life aid is required? Well, there have been successful initiatives coming out of the UN, with mass vaccinations against dread exotic and localized diseases; more children are outliving childhood, fewer mothers are dying in childbirth, and food aid is given to the starving masses whose rulers live in plenty.
It's kind of hard not to bring a certain cynicism to this latest ploy, where African countries insist that the billions that the developed world is willing to set aside for aid - in a financial-collapse environment just now beginning to ease - is laughingly inadequate to compensate for the inequities in wealth between the rich and the poor. No one is willing to address the inequities existing in poor African countries between their ruling tyrants and their enabled cliques, and the vast starving masses.
Still, one might hope that this conference won't end up being the total sham that it looks like it's shaping up for. With the smug togetherness of the haves, and the indignant denunciations of the have-nots, and never the twain will meet. But in fact, this isn't a conference about dividing the riches of the world more fairly is it? It's a conference about all sectors of the world coming together to plan how best to ameliorate a growing environmental tragedy.
Isn't it?
In extracting what has been defined as the dirtiest fossil-fuels on the Planet, that very orb that seeks to avail itself of yet greater amounts of said fuel. It's really a dirty world we live in, alas. And we're spouting those carbon-dioxide emissions heedlessly. But this is serious business, and we do, really, have to try a whole lot harder. To come to terms - despite the imbroglio of the email releases of the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia - with the reality of change and impending change deleterious to Earth and to us.
Still, it's kind of rich to see Canada singled out for contempt, in the face of an entitled-delegate country like Sudan, happily extracting oil wealth, sharing it with China with whom it has much in common, and refusing to share it with all Sudanese; those living in dire poverty and particularly Darfurians defiantly insisting on their right to share in the country's good fortunes, (just inviting the inevitable response of dislocation, rape and mass murder). Genocidal settlement of interior dissent is nowhere near as abhorrent as extracting dirty oil.
Right: apples and oranges, and they're both good nutritional choices. The celebrated Al Gore, leader of the greening of the environmental revolution, revealed unwittingly the inconvenient truth of his personal environmental footstep, belying his righteous denunciation of global corporate polluters and the advanced world's wasteful consumption of energy while global warming caused by technological advancement is set to drown the poor and the downtrodden of the world.
In Copenhagen, at the world environmental summit, representatives of about 160 countries, and far many more NGOs, concerned environmentalists and groupies will be present to hammer out their unilateral demands. This is one huge, yet solemn party where self-flagellation and exquisitely new methods of psychological torture aimed at the guilt-reflexes of advanced countries will herald the self-righteous expectations of economically-emerging countries.
Just think of all those private jets, the lavish dinners, the gorgeously appointed accommodations, the limousines idling, waiting for delegates, UN officials and NGO representatives to exit their meetings and be whisked off to other meetings, congregations, dinners. Tiny Denmark couldn't supply all the limos that were ordered, so they arrived, spewing their carbon emissions, over one thousand of them, from Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and France.
It's been published in the Times of India that India, China, South Africa and Brazil formed a power cabal to present a common front, prepared to abandon all negotiations if they feel they're being coerced into a deal that would unduly benefit the carbon-spewing developed nations. Why wouldn't they? More power to them. Of the non-CO2-spewing variety, needless to say. Which doesn't really lessen the stark reality that SOMETHING has to be agreed to, and truly accomplished.
But there's something about that United Nations involvement in this critical issue of the survival of the Earth's atmosphere as we know, love and depend upon it. There's more than a sneaking suspicion born of the intelligent mind to delve into such matters, that there is an uppermost agenda superimposed upon the environment. And that, largely, is the transfer of wealth to what was so long termed the Third World. And then, one thinks: what has happened with all those trillions of dollars that have been transferred to under-developed countries to date?
What critical advances have been made in the quality of life of people living in Africa, in Asia, in Central America, and anywhere that quality-of-life aid is required? Well, there have been successful initiatives coming out of the UN, with mass vaccinations against dread exotic and localized diseases; more children are outliving childhood, fewer mothers are dying in childbirth, and food aid is given to the starving masses whose rulers live in plenty.
It's kind of hard not to bring a certain cynicism to this latest ploy, where African countries insist that the billions that the developed world is willing to set aside for aid - in a financial-collapse environment just now beginning to ease - is laughingly inadequate to compensate for the inequities in wealth between the rich and the poor. No one is willing to address the inequities existing in poor African countries between their ruling tyrants and their enabled cliques, and the vast starving masses.
Still, one might hope that this conference won't end up being the total sham that it looks like it's shaping up for. With the smug togetherness of the haves, and the indignant denunciations of the have-nots, and never the twain will meet. But in fact, this isn't a conference about dividing the riches of the world more fairly is it? It's a conference about all sectors of the world coming together to plan how best to ameliorate a growing environmental tragedy.
Isn't it?
Labels: Economy, Environment, Health, Human Relations, Technology
posted by Pieface | 6:52 PM
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