It’s not about saving the planet. It’s about
protecting the prerogatives of special interest groups on the planet: the
investments of big business in non-carbon emitting energy sources, in
particular, nuclear power. Think France, China, Japan, and Finland. It’s not about protecting poor countries from the effects of climate
change. It’s about engineering aid to poor countries, aid which will be used
for things which are for the most part unrelated or flat out in contradiction
to the principles of conservation, clean air, and clean water. It’s not about reducing
carbon emissions per se. It’s about making Europe more competitive from
an economic point of view vis-à-vis countries like the United States and China
whose economies are more energy-intensive and depend more on cheap energy.
The environmental movement used to be about
the environment. It has become little more than a tool in the hands of
political parties, third-world demagogues who dominate the politics of aid, and
big business which stands to reap profits from regulation that favors sources
of energy they are heavily invested in.
I disagree with James Hansen, the famous
scientist and environmentalist, who wants the
Copenhagen summit to fail. Let it succeed, in the sense that these summits
succeed. But let’s be clear: summits like this one provide window-dressing to
complex geopolitical negotiations the true ends of which have little to do with
the environment.
Well put. And I hear it's blizzarding on them in Copenhagen :) . . .
Posted by: Mitchell Powell | December 18, 2009 at 01:52 PM