Hypocrisies

Global Warming Politics 

I very much like David Aaronovitch, especially since he became an opinion writer for The Times. I don’t always agree with him, but David is unquestionably his own man, and he can turn a devastating phrase, as is brilliantly exemplified today [‘Eventually, we will all hate Obama too’, The Times, July 22; paper version, p. 22]:

“George W. Bush, of course, represents a particular kind of offence to European sensibilities. He blew out Kyoto, instead of pretending to care about it and then not implementing it, which is what our hypocrisies require.”

Absolutely. This is something I have been noting, if less pithily and less succinctly, for over ten years. What really got up European snobberies was not the fact that the Bush administration wasn’t doing anything about ‘global warming’ (actually, the US has often done far more practically-speaking than Europe), but a deep irritation that the Toxic Texan resolutely refused to play the European hypocritical game of hand-wringing and talking-the-talk, while doing pretty well zilch of note. Indeed, I have often suggested in public that, politically-speaking, Bush should perhaps have simply played ‘the game’, and then not implemented anything, just like the majority of the countries which did ratify. It is well to recall that the word, ‘hypocrisy’, derives from the Greek, ὑπόκρισις (hypokrisis), which means ‘play-acting’, ‘acting out’, or ‘feigning/dissembling’.

Just let me remind you of some salutary statistics. Between 1997 and 2004, carbon dioxide emissions rose as follows:

Emissions worldwide increased 18.0%;

Emissions from countries that ratified the protocol increased 21.1%;

Emissions from non-ratifiers of the protocol increased 10.0%;

Emissions from the US (a non-ratifier) increased 6.6%;

Emissions from the US increased less than 75% of ratifying countries.

With respect to the last point, the following are the percentage rises in emissions for a list of selected countries which have ratified the protocol (or which were exempted from targets): Maldives, 252%; China, 55%; Luxembourg, 43%; Iran, 39%; Norway, 24%; Russia, 16%; Italy, 16%; Finland, 15%; Mexico, 11%; Japan, 11%; Canada, 8.8%.

Here is unequivocal factual evidence in support of David’s scathing observation. ‘Global warming’ has become the ultimate faith without works. All that matters is the public confession of sin and belief, which must now also include, again as David points out in his article, the vilification of the US.