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Tag: fossil fuel

VIPERS AND NITWITS

VIPERS AND NITWITS

When­ev­er the world took a turn of which he did not approve, my late father used to mut­ter that it was “spawn­ing a gen­er­a­tion of vipers and nitwits.” It’s tak­en more than a gen­er­a­tion, but we’ve reached the point where the per­ilous­ly poi­so­nous and the dead­ly dumb  prevail.Read the rest

COP28: LIP SERVICE, LIES AND COP-OUTS?

COP28: LIP SERVICE, LIES AND COP-OUTS?

I’d like noth­ing bet­ter than for the answer to the head­line on this blog to turn out to be a resound­ing “no”. But noth­ing in the cast of lead­ing char­ac­ters, atten­dees and  past his­to­ry gives rea­son to believe the cli­mate sum­mit known as COP28 will, to man­gle a Rolling Stones lyric, get us any­thing like what we want, let alone come close to what we need.Read the rest

THE ROAD TO IDIOCY

THE ROAD TO IDIOCY

Arro­gance is seduc­tive. It doesn’t require ques­tion­ing, deal­ing with self- doubt or chang­ing one’s ways. Along with its cohort irra­tional­i­ty, it is a trait we recog­nise as dan­ger­ous, yet seem increas­ing­ly tol­er­ant towards, even when it is demon­stra­bly counter-productive.Read the rest

AN ARCHAIC WORD SUMS UP A MODERN FAILURE

AN ARCHAIC WORD SUMS UP A MODERN FAILURE

Sum­mits, which typ­i­cal­ly have more to do with words than actions, are habit­u­al­ly known by their acronym, which leaves the field wide open for re-inter­pre­ta­tion. I there­fore sug­gest that in the case of the major play­ers in COP27, the “P” — which stands for “Par­ties” — be replaced with the plur­al of an archa­ic Eng­lish epi­thet: “poltroon”.Read the rest

Fouling the Nest

Fouling the Nest

As I slid past a thir­ty meter-high gran­ite cliff in my kayak this week, I noticed a slash of white just below a small cave-like crack in the rock. It brought to mind the proverb: “It’s an ill bird that fouls its own nest”, a typ­i­cal­ly human way to char­ac­terise fool­ish­ness by cast­ing unmer­it­ed aspersions.Read the rest