“When I reflect on the
pompous titles bestowed on unworthy men, I feel an indignity that instructs me
to despise absurdity.” Thomas Paine
World leaders meet in Paris at COP-21 to see if rich nations
and poor nations, large nations and small nations, can reach agreement to
mitigate the effects of climate change. The stakes are very high.
Speeches galore on the opening day, calls for action, and
dire warnings about the dangers of inaction; Barack Obama makes a speech full
of words that soar like falcons but in the end amount to little more than the
twittering of finches. Obama’s fellow leaders know that he can’t push climate
legislation through a Republican-controlled US Congress chock full of rabid climate
change deniers. While the world fries in some areas, and floods in others,
while the air in many parts of China is hazardous, the deniers claim that the
science of global warming is still up for debate.
Why does the US spawn so many stupid politicians? This country
boasts some of the finest universities in the world, our technological know-how
is astonishing, our ability to measure and predict is unprecedented, and yet
many American politicians steadfastly dispute the reality of climate change;
they ignore the evidence at their feet and right above their heads; and as for
expecting them to connect the dots between climate change and political unrest,
terrorism, and refugees, forget it, they never will. They are blinded by greed
for money, power, influence, and prestige.
COP-21 has only a slender chance of producing an agreement
binding on all nations. When all the talking is through, money will win out as
it almost always does. The big polluters, who have phalanxes of lawyers and
lobbyists and PR flacks to do their bidding, will insist on incremental
foot-dragging to allow industry time to transition. But when it comes to the
climate on which we all depend, time is the one resource we don’t have.
The people out in the streets of Paris, and those around the
world, are miles ahead of their political leaders because they know that the weight
of climate change will fall disproportionately on them.
The poor and downtrodden always take the blunt end of the
club in the gut.
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