Climate change, what climate change?

[Guest guest]

Groundbreaking climate report inspires predictable political responses

 

World reaction to yesterday's U.K. report linking climate change with possible

economic ruin has been swift -- and painfully predictable. While British Prime

Minister Tony Blair and his likely successor Gordon Brown hailed the findings,

Kyoto-resisters Australia and the U.S. offered more lukewarm responses.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard warned his government not to be

" mesmerized " by the report, and the White House primly acknowledged Stern's

" contribution " to the ongoing study of global warming, while declining to

endorse his results. A U.S. energy-industry spokesperson was less circumspect,

calling the report " fun with numbers, " and OPEC's secretary-general said it

reflected " scenarios that have no foundations in either science or economics. "

Ouch. Meanwhile, The New York Times reported that annual U.S. government

spending on energy research and development is less than half what it was 25

years ago. Well, yeah: those 1980 freewheelers didn't have to save up for the

next Great Depression.

 

 

straight to the source: Telegraph, Alex Massie, Richard Spencer, and Rahul Bedi,

31 Oct 2006

 

 

straight to the source: The Sydney Morning Herald, Phillip Coorey and Stephanie

Peatling, 01 Nov 2006

 

 

straight to the source: News, Reuters, Tanya Mosolova, 31 Oct 2006

 

 

straight to the source: The New York Times, Andrew C. Revkin, 30 Oct 2006

 

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances,

there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in

such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest

we become unwitting victims of the darkness.

William O. Douglas