Why Does Rudd Rush In Where Obama Fears To Tread?
Posted by papundits on 11/04/2009
By Andrew Bolt
Why is (Australian Prime Minister) Kevin Rudd so desperate to have Parliament pass his colossal emissions trading tax before next month’s Copenhagen meeting when even Barack Obama has given up on that mug’s game?
International negotiators lost one of the key elements to a successful deal on global warming today after Democratic leaders in the US Congress ruled out passing a climate change law before 2010. In the latest obstacle on the road to the UN summit in Copenhagen next month, Senate leaders ordered a five-week pause to review the costs of the legislation. In a move to stem the Republican protest, and quieten Democrat critics, the Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, said he would ask the Environmental Protection Agency to spend five weeks reviewing the potential costs of the bill.
Warminst extremist George Monbiot is in despair:
There is no point in denying it: we’re losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease.
Stuart Blackman in The Scientist wouldn’t be surprised:
Scientists have a strong incentive to make bold predictions — namely, to obtain funding, influence, and high-profile publications. But unfulfilled predictions can be a blow for patients, policy makers, and for the reputation of science itself.
(Via Benny Peiser.)
UPDATE
Monbiot thinks elders are dumb and selfish:
The Pew report found that people over 65 are much more likely than the rest of the population to deny that there is solid evidence that the earth is warming, that it’s caused by humans, or that it’s a serious problem. This chimes with my own experience. Almost all my fiercest arguments over climate change, both in print and in person, have been with people in their 60s or 70s. Why might this be?
There are some obvious answers: they won’t be around to see the results; they were brought up in a period of technological optimism; they feel entitled, having worked all their lives, to fly or cruise to wherever they wish. But there might also be a less intuitive reason… When people are confronted with images or words or questions that remind them of death they respond by shoring up their worldview, rejecting people and ideas that threaten it, and increasing their striving for self-esteem.
Hmm. But Monbiot once thought elders were wise and nurturing. Example:
Growth and desiccation in the savannahs are so rapid that the herders must start moving before the rain falls. While all the elders can read the clouds or smell the moisture in the wind, the Samburu say that only Ledumen can truly divine the intentions of God.
And another:
During the long dry seasons in the far north west of Kenya, the people of the Turkwel River keep themselves alive by feeding their goats on the pods of the acacia trees growing on its banks. Every clump of trees is controlled by a committee of elders, who decide who should be allowed to use them and for how long.
What could explain the difference? Is it that Monbiot prefers his elders to be poor, superstititious and dangerously vulnerable to the weather? If so, his green program will sure smarten them up.
Andrew Bolt is a journalist and columnist writing for The Herald Sun in Melbourne Victoria Australia.
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