Clean Air is for Pussies

From the days when our biggest Dubya-related worry was Kyoto.



I find myself rather irksomely weary today. Perhaps this is because of the unnaturally gray and lifeless sky that has no business being there on a June day. It could be the incessant dripping that did a most wonderful job of ensuring my efforts at getting to sleep consisted of staring at the inside of my eyelids for 3 hours. However, as I am one of those dreadful people who lie awake worrying about the current state of world, and as I am vindictive by nature, I rather think I shall lay the blame directly at Dubya's door.

Yes, the leader of the free world and the winner of the "Closest resemblance to a Bonobo Monkey by a President" award 2001 is visiting Europe (Yurp as he doubtless refers to it) to try and cajole us into accepting his plans for the Son of Star Wars defence system whilst simultaneously telling us that we can take our environmental treaties and shove them up our collective Yurpean arse (or ass, seeing as he's a plain speaking Texan...). I refer to the Kyoto treaty, negotiated between President Clinton and the EU and just awaiting ratification. Or at least it was until Dubya promised all of his friends in the Oil and Energy business that he wouldn't sign it.

And why would he do such a thing? Well, the treaty states that all signatories will reduce carbon emission levels (basically a catchall term for greenhouse gasses) by 5.2% of 1990 levels, and that they will do so by 2012. Dubya has refused point blank to do so, stating in his defence that the treaty is "fatally flawed". And I wholeheartedly agree with him on that point; the treaty has one major flaw that I amongst many others would wish to see rectified before it is brought into force as a piece of international law. It is far too weak! 5.2% is a tiny little drop in a vast and gaseous ocean. What would it actually achieve other than giving a few ministers a chance to indulge in a bit of backslapping and perhaps allowing their respective governments to claim the green vote?

But let's ignore that rather trifling point for now as it only serves to distract from an otherwise legitimate rant about one of my favourite whipping boys (and as one of the Mormons said to me yesterday, "You shouldn't get too bogged down with the facts because they'll distract you from the truth"). The fact remains that the EU are at least willing to take a step, however small, toward reversing our rather annoying habit of treating the planet like a vast dumping ground for all manner of waste and poison. America, responsible for producing 25% of the worlds greenhouse gasses, isn't even willing to make such a tiny effort simply because they don't want to do anything that might "harm the economy".

That is a frequently used piece of doublespeak that could best be translated as "all of my friends and fund-raisers in big business will have to spend a tiny fraction of their gargantuan profits in order to achieve this goal, and they prefer their profits to stay in their pockets." In other words the man elected to look after and safeguard the best interests of the people of the US is using his power and influence in order to safeguard the interests of about 50 of them; the 50 being industrialists and company bosses. It's not as if the money that they save will filter down to the workforce either, and lest you doubt that then perhaps we can discuss the comparative figures for pay rises given to bosses and redundancies amongst workers in the last 10 years?

I won't presume to bore you (or at least no more than usual) with the many and varied environmental reasons that Dubya's actions are a stupendously bad thing. Suffice to say that we can look forward to more earnest yet boring programs about why the world continues to be a god-awful smog filled place, and kiss goodbye to a snowballing number of flora and fauna species. Cheers Dubya, you're really building for the future of America and the World aren't you, you corrupt, money hungry, spineless, traitorous little shit of an excuse for a man.

It's not as if this is particularly good business. I was always told that one should shear ones sheep so that one can continue making a profit from them year after year. As big business continues to tear through resources and produce more and more waste it becomes more difficult for them to actually sustain those profits because there are less raw materials available and they're not getting renewed as they once were due in part to the amount of toxic crap that is churned out. They're not shearing the sheep; they're ripping the skin off and leaving the corpse to rot in the field.

Now I'm all too aware of just what a whining liberal environmentalist I sound as I write all of this, but fear not. I am not about to break into that old chorus of "What kind of world are we leaving for our children?!" complete with wringing hands and watery eyes. Frankly I couldn't give the first toss about our children right now; the world of the future is their problem, and good luck to them! I'm concerned about the world that I live in now and I'd quite like to be able to go outside without having to check the pH level of the air that I'm breathing. That's not too much to ask really, is it?