Posted by Nicholas | There is more joy in heaven for a sinner who repents… That’s a really good idea if you can get your timing right – have a life devoted to pleasure, sin as much as you like, look down on all the boring goodie goodies, and when your time is almost up, probably when you’re too frail to sin very much anyway, repent ad see the light. Then up to heaven you go, to join in all the celebrations at your conversion, while all the virtuous prigs, whose arrival is no surprise to anyone, are let in by the side door and told to go sit on a cloud somewhere and shut up. Of course, if you die early, before repentance time, you’re screwed, but you get the idea.
So, now, should we show joy on earth for a disbeliever who sees the light? I speak of president Bush and his recent pronouncements of global warming. After so many years of clinging to the belief that there is no such thing as global warming, or if there is that it isn’t really serious, of if it is serious that it’s part of nature’s cycle and was always going to happen anyway and it shouldn’t stop of paying for gasoline or burning coal after all that he comes up with a plan to do something about it. He still calls it climate change, though, not global warming, but that’s a recognized technique: use a mealy mouthed name to hide the true nature of what you’re describing (collateral damage, affirmative action, aggressive interrogation, and of course, climate change).
They’re going to be talking a lot about global arming at the G8 this month. The main players want to do something about it. The preliminary document was very definite about that: it set dates, emission levels and targets. No messing about. But much to the consternation of Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor and leading player, the U.S. delegation attempted to emasculate the document by deleting any reference to the inevitability of global warming or the imperative need to do something about it. Instead, they wanted to leave only the vaguest, most lax “targets.” There’s a limit, after all, to what the oil companies will tolerate.
So then Bush comes up with his own plan to combat global warming. This from the man who reneged on the Kyoto Treaty. Is there joy on earth? Are we happy? We should not be. This is not an attempt to do anything substantial. This plan doesn’t have targets, it has “aspirations.” Gee, we kinda hope we can slow down climate change but please don’t hold us to it. While Washington has been denying global warming even exists and concentrating on more important things like killing Iraqis, a lot of the developed world has been getting on with it. It’s only a start but it is something. Bush’s apparent conversion is not a gift to them. His latest drivel is designed to undermine the efforts that other countries have been making, to loosen controls and standards that they have devised, and generally to place himself and the people who control him in charge of the debate. Aspirations, hopes, apparently good intentions, but in the meantime keep on pumping that gas.
Luckily the other G8 leaders are not idiots and they will know the correct way to react: beware of Texans bearing gifts.
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