Anglo-Saxon attitudes?

What is it about the English-speaking world and its inability to get to grips with climate change? I ask this because, when you look at the situation here in the UK, in the US, Canada, and Australia, we Anglo-Saxons (as Winston Churchill consoled himself by calling us) are singularly shit at saving the planet.

We all know about the Bush administration and its craven assaults on the environment. With just over a year left in office, the Chimp King is doing his darnedest to throw bones to his buddies in the polluting industries: blowing the tops of mountains in Appalachia, vetoing any progressive bill that comes from Congress, fighting international efforts to slow climate change, turning the EPA into a federal opponent of state attempts to reduce transport emissions… the list of infamy goes on and on.

But Bush isn’t alone in being ready, for the profits vested interests, to destroy our future. Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, was happy this week to announce that his country had no hope of reaching its Kyoto targets; indeed, greenhouse gas emissions have risen by an appalling 32% since 1990! Harper, a good (read: bad) Canadian Tory, has consistently put the short term profits of Albertan oil above the needs of his country.

As for Australia: well, it looks like we might finally see the back of the odious John Howard, who is currently trailing Kevin Rudd six weeks before a general election. Until we do (and I won’t believe it until Howard has taken up a consolation seat at the Heritage Foundation in Washington), we can only look back at eleven years of bigotry, inaction, and waste. Howard, like his friend George, has refused to sign up to Kyoto, and until very recently continued to pretend that global warming had nothing to with Australia’s ‘once in a thousand years’ drought.

But these are all nasty, right-wing politicians, right? Surely our own, New Labour government doesn’t belong in their malodorous company? Alas and alack, Gordon Brown is proving to be worthy of his surname, as he wriggles out of his predecessor’s commitments on renewable energy, steadfastly ignores the demands of a growing number of businesses for governmental assurances on green investments, and balks at the prospect of spending even the tiniest fraction of money his own advisor, Sir Nicholas Stern, insists must be spent if we are to avoid the ruinous consequences of man-made climate change. Why is it that a country with the largest renewable energy potential in Europe is lagging far behind Germany, Spain and even Latvia? What do the other countries have that we don’t, other than foresight, courage and political will?

Ah, but political will is what’s missing throughout the Anglo-Saxon world. Hooked like the most abject of junkies on an unsustainable model of laissez faire capitalism, endowed with a remarkable capacity for self-deception and blind to the vast potential for economic prosperity embodied in what Germans are rightly calling a Second Industrial Revolution, the Axis of Albion seems unequal to the task of building a sustainable future. Is it because sod-you libertarianism is too deeply entrenched in our culture? Will progress forever be hobbled by our ferociously reactionary media, as dominated by the like of Rupert Murdoch, Paul Dacre and the reclusive Barclay brothers? Readers of this blog – if there are any – will be used, by now, to my pessimism about our species’ prospects of making it through to a third millennium. I hope to God my prognoses are mistaken and that we get through the bottleneck. But even if we do, what chance that future historians won’t view with contempt the environmental crimes of our present ‘Anglo-Saxon’ leaders?

Gorgon

As far as we in the hills are concerned, the reign of the gorgon began with rumours; and I half believed them, for though the stories had grown more horrible with every telling, yet they had the partial authority of witness. Someone had found the devoured limbs, the discarded viscera: a shepherd perhaps, or a goatherd, stumbling upon the petrified mother, the eaten child. But this was at a time of high prices, when every merchant’s thoughts were with his shipments of grain. Talk of monsters was bad for business: it made buyers cautious and kept out foreign trade. When a messenger ran, bloodied, into the city with tales of fresh horror, some called for a levy of troops to meet the enemy; but these excitable individuals were put in their places. We could not afford to waste time and resources on hypothetical threats from unproven sources.

‘If there is a gorgon,’ an elder said, ‘and I am sceptical on that point, then country folk have our deepest sympathy. But really, don’t come to us that have ridden out plagues and sieges complaining of a little local difficulty. We have enough on our plates not to worry ourselves with mythical creatures.’

At first it was easy to ignore the gorgon: her victims, though ever more numerous, were unknown to us and of little significance. None can gaze on that hideous face and survive; yet it takes a strong constitution to look, not in the gorgon’s eyes, but at the simple fact of her existence. Those who did, and shouted warnings in the streets, were regarded as troublemakers: it was the sort of thing our enemies would have us do. This did not prevent dreamers from thinking up impractical solutions: tinted-glass helmets, or a complex and hopeless device using blades and mirrors. Sceptics viewed such efforts with contempt; the gorgon was a natural phenomenon, they argued, and it was presumptuous to oppose a daughter of Gaia. Others conceded that her depredations might make life more uncomfortable for us and that the only solution was to build higher walls around our villas and to hire mercenaries to guard the hillsides. These things were done; and eventually the tide of refugees abated, knowing that nothing awaited them on the heights save the sharp points of cold iron.

The countryside emptied and famine stalked the city. Another hunger followed; but at first the wails of grief were confined to the poorest hovels. We felt sorry for the victims, of course, but a quick death was preferable to slow starvation and besides, no earthly appetite is insatiable. There were many in the hills that put their faith in our enemy’s indigestion. Yet the gorgon returned, again and again, to ever more empty streets, and soon the serpents on her head were flicking their tongues towards our homes.

For the first time, we in the hills feel directly threatened. Some are indignant about this; others are given to weeping and prayer. Every day we must pay the mercenaries more to keep them from deserting. Naturally, those with the means are looking for ways out; but we chose our hills for the security they offered – the sea on one side, the city on the other. We are trapped in a prison of our own making. Very soon, one bright morning, we will awake to find the soldiers gone.

I look at my children and wonder which will be the more merciful: teeth or stone. That I can write these words does not make them any easier to bear.

Copyright © Gregory Norminton 2007

You don't need a weatherman

Re-reading King Lear recently, I was struck by these famous lines from the 'blasted heath' scene. As so often with Shakespeare, they seem to have a prophetic bent.

Poor naked wretches,

whereso'er you are,

That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,

How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,

Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you

From seasons such as these?

O! I have ta'en
Too little care of this.