by Val Germann
Believe it or not, the energy and climate future of planet Earth was most likely determined over the weekend as Melbourne, Australia hosted the G20 finance meetings. In spite of dire warnings and growing public concern, the leaders of world finance, the people with serious economic clout, refused to even consider the climate issue. However, as was reported yesterday on the TERRADAILY website, the G20 announced that they had:
. . . reached an agreement on ensuring energy and commodity markets could meet demand from the world’s emerging economic giants
In other words, business as usual, with bells-on, because these “emerging economic giants” are consuming fossil fuels at enormous and ever-increasing rates. These increases threaten to drive atmospheric carbon dioxide to higher and ever-higher levels, perhaps unleashing a “runaway greenhouse effect,” as has been discussed here before.
The response to all of this by the money men, those with true and long-lasting economic power, is to ignore the problem completely, to “pass the buck,” as it is sometimes said. And it is simply a fact, one well known to Star Phoenix Base readers, that without support from the top, and adequate finances, nothing important can ever get done. After this last weekend no one should be holding their breath waiting for concrete action on climate change. Our readers may draw their own conclusions from the following quote:
The Australian Treasurer had said before the meeting that climate change would be a major part of the agenda, including discussion on market mechanisms to reduce emissions, such as carbon trading. But South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said the economists had decided climate change was beyond their remit and decided to leave the issue to environment ministers.
The entire sorry story can be read in the TERRADAILY article.
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Well, there you have it Val … this has nothing to do with “finance” at all. You should know that “finance” only relates to what will happen in the next quarter to enhance profits or how much can be pilfered from the government till to pay for pork barrel projects.
Now it is a fact that in governmental pecking orders the finance ministers rank pretty high, as for example in Britain the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the No. 2 person in the hen house, equivalent to being Vice President in the U.S. but with a LOT more power. So these finance minister types are VERY puffed-up important people who have a lot of serious stuff to do without having to worry about a few little melting ice caps, disappearing rain forests, and the potential end of civilization as we know it.
I recently re-read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which starts out with Earth being destroyed in order to make room for an intergalactic expressway. Something like that may be about to happen for real, but we wouldn’t expect Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, to lower himself to doing anything about it, would we?
And then there are those powerful “environmental ministers,” such as, well, er, whoever they are. Here in the U.S. I guess that would be the Secretary of the Interior, or perhaps the Secretary of Energy, or, ah, somebody else. Maybe not even anybody. With so many choices, it’s easy to keep on passing the ball around and playing Hide the Monkey with the future of civilization.
Yes, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus, and we are all so doomed. — David