If you've been wondering why the UN's Montreal mega-conference on Global Warming has received little coverage -- "what f'ing conference?" I hear you cry -- Rex Murphy has the answer. "Probably because of the cold weather," he says half seriously. (Picture right of the ususal eco-rabble making trouble)As conferences go, this one is a real Leviathan. Just think of the Montreal summit's ecological footprint. Is there really a need to fly ten thousand people from 189 countries to a cold city to exchange ideas? Is there no e-mail? Are the phone lines down? Does no one own a Blackberry?
Well, I suppose in this matter, ecology is not really different from politics. High on sermons, low on example. Maybe it's low-key because the celebrity attendance is sparse. There are not many rock stars there. What's an environmental summit without rock stars? Are they all worn out after making poverty history? That was their summer project, remember.
So now here we are in the Northern hemisphere winter. On "brutally cold day" in Montreal,
one of the Greenpeace high priests offered a brilliant synopsis of how comprehensively the concept of global warming applies. He said, and I quote, "Global warming can mean colder; it can mean dryer; it can mean wetter." Well, if warm can mean cold, if warm can mean wet, and if warm can mean dry, is it fair to ask if warm still means warm? This is the beauty of global warming. It's a theory that covers every possibility.
"More of a tent than a thesis," suggests Murphy helpfully. "And if it's just kind of average - say, 48F and partially cloudy, as it will be in Llandudno today," notes the sagacious Mark Steyn, "that's a sign that global warming is accelerating out of control and you need to flee immediately because time is running out !"
Odd how long it takes for the sands of time to run before disaster strikes - the recycled 'Ice Age scare' of last week was being used to frighten us in the late seventies. Time was running out then too, apparently. Steyn notes that and concludes:
...in their efforts to flog some life back into the dead Kyoto horse, the eco-cultists have to come up with ever scarier horrors, such as that "New Ice Age". Meanwhile, the Bush Administration's Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate brings together the key economic colossi of this new century - America, China and India - plus Australia, Japan and South Korea, in a relationship that acknowledges, unlike Kyoto, the speed of Chinese and Indian economic growth, provides for the sharing of cleaner energy technology and recognises that the best friend of the planet's natural resources is the natural resourcefulness of a dynamic economy.
It's a practical and results-oriented approach, which is why the eco-cultists will never be marching through globally warmed, snow-choked streets on its behalf. It lacks the requisite component of civilisational self-loathing.
Wake up and smell the CO2, guys. Sayonara, Kyoto. Hello, coalition of the emitting.
Linked Article: Perhaps Kyoto is Japanese for hypocrisy
Related Articles: "Kyoto Dispatches" - "Notes from the UN Climate Summit in Montreal."
"Home of Le Whopper"
Jargon obscures Montreal message
On climate change, a change of thinking
What planet are the eco-cultists on? - Mark Steyn
"An Unethical Environment?
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