Holier than thou Gordon Brown and his chum Ed Milliband are singling out China for blocking progress at the Copenhagen climate change summit.
This is from a government who is happy for its citizens to import cheap goods from China, effectively shifting the country's carbon footprint to that country.
It is a government who could have seized the initiative with the economic stimulus package to further energy saving measures. Instead they chose to offer car scrappage when it is pretty obvious that keeping an old car in efficient running order is far less damaging than scrapping it and getting a new one.
It is a government whose population policy is non-existent, whereas China is at least attempting to address its own numbers, overpopulation being directly responsible for world overconsumption. It is a government who, along with other western powers, cannot conceive of a working economic model that does not include the word 'growth', one which actually relies on an increasing population to fuel it. For this reason alone, Copenhagen could never have worked because a whole shift in economics is required, a shift that world leaders simply cannot understand.
Whether or not you believe the science behind climate change, a way-change in curbing the overuse of fossil fuels, which are a finite resource, is long overdue. The trouble is, it's not the scientific model that is the problem, but the political and economic models.
The government's 'green' policy is limited to a few paltry wind turbines and switching electricity generation to gas, a resource that is dwindling at a far greater rate even than oil.
It is, franky, pathetic.
relies on an increasing population to fuel it
That drives me mad. That they really do think of it like a pyramid selling scheme where you have to have a constant supply of fresh people for it to work. The flaw in that should be obvious to a child and yet they seem unable to see it.
We've actually banned pyramid selling schemes because by their very nature you reach a point where those last to join before further growth becomes impossible, are worse off. In the case of our economy that would be our grandchildren.
I had no real hopes for this agreement anyway. I figured that it would be badly thought out and that everyone would find some small print that let them carry on as before anyway. I doubt anyone there thought of it as an agreement anyway, but more of an opportunity to gain some advantage.
it is pretty obvious
Is it though?
I often think like this and then realise that it actually isn't pretty obvious to other people at all.
I get annoyed with the whole climate change thing as I alaays seem to end up the bad guy using a light bulb and not having a thermostat to turn down a degree, when I am sure overall my footprint is less than the holier-than-thou people telling me off.http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/22/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynasHmm, that's an eye opener, and it certainly has the ring of truth about it. In that case, it's high time the EU made itself useful and began to tighten up regulations for manufactured goods production such as human rights, carbon emissions, safety certificates, all sorts of things that EU companies comply with but Chinese companies don't. With a bit of ingenuity we could block Chinese imports for decades. Minimum wages would be a good one.
