Look who's talking: Tomorrow is just another (polluted) day

3:53pm Thursday 26th April 2001

A survey was commissioned by the Northern Irish Government earlier this month to discover American attitudes to our foot and mouth outbreak.

Apparently it made grim reading. The tourism minister reported to his assembly that we are perceived as a diseased country, with no food for the tourists to eat, (or at least none that would be safe for the delicate transatlantic palate).

Incredibly, some Americans were under the impression that their hands and feet would fall off if they were to be infected themselves by a disease that has arguably only affected a couple of human beings this century and which, however unpleasant, is rarely fatal even for animals.

The same nation that has this fastidious attitude to foot and mouth, (which they call hoof and mouth, even though the hoof is unaffected) is the world's premier polluter; and it has a president who has declined to allow his country to join the rest of the industrialised nations in setting modest greenhouse gas emission reduction targets with the intention of preventing all our grandchildren inheriting a poisoned, overheated planet.

This then is "Dubya", a man whose function seems to be to make other nation's leaders look articulate and statesmanlike. He is on record as having said: "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it." Ah, how silly of us!

But then what is to be expected from the man who also momentously pronounced: "It is time for the human race to enter the solar system."

The laughter provoked by these "thoughts of Chairman Bush" rings hollow in the context of his awesome power. As he himself prophetically uttered: "People that are very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history."

You can say that again, Dubya.

Human nature being what it is, none of us is going to give up our greedy planet-consuming ways unilaterally. But we fondly hope that those who seek high office do so on our behalf, at least in part, because they want to be seen to make a difference.

Some nations at Kyoto, and subsequently in The Hague, have been brave enough to risk short-term inconvenience and financial loss to their own countries' citizens in order to slow down global warming. It is significant that the Earth's richest country is the one declining to ratify the Kyoto protocol.

To the credit of the European Union, its ministers are urging member countries to continue to meet the emission reduction targets even if the United States refuses to join in.

It's a rather telling indictment of the American national mentality that telling a lie about a sexual liaison, (properly only really the business of the parties involved), is seen as a greater crime than poisoning the world at arm's length, by adopting a chauvinistic protectionist attitude.

It is, of course, only to be expected from a Texan president who governed that state and received over two and a half million dollars in campaign funds from pollution control exempt Texan petrochemical companies.

Small wonder he would rather dance to their fossil fuel tune than worry about the environmental cost to future generations!

"The future will be better tomorrow" Guess Who!

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