For sheer gobsmacking, jaw-dropping, purblind stupidity, the comments on the Paris massacre published on Saturday by the editor of the Ecologist magazine* take first prize cum laude.
It is difficult to believe what appeared on the magazine’s website, taking pride of place underneath a banner proclaiming that the magazine has been “setting the environmental agenda since 1970”.
Published immediately after the massacre, the editor had clearly given it a great deal of thought before putting his homemade pencil to his environmentally-friendly paper, and then delivering his missive to the webmaster via a small boy bearing it in a cleft stick.
He chose to introduce his piece with a question. “Is it a coincidence that the terrorist outrage in Paris was committed weeks before COP21 (21st Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change), the biggest climate conference since 2009?”
No. Of course it was not a coincidence. Everyone knows that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (Isis) has it in for the environment and Gaia worshippers everywhere because they pose an existential threat to its perverted version of Islam.
The conspiracy theory continues: “Failure to reach a strong climate agreement now looks more probable. And that’s (sic) an outcome that would suit Isis” – which makes $500 million (R7.2 billion) a year from oil sales – together with other oil producers.
Religious maniacs
It was all about oil companies wanting to raise the price of oil? So we must seriously consider the possibility that this motivated eight religious maniacs to kill and wound more than 300 innocent people in Paris?
“Yes, it’s (sic again) still about the climate, very much so. But there are also compelling reasons of national and global security to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, oil in particular.”
That is clear enough. It means that in his paranoia he believes two things: that everything bad that happens is because of the machinations of big business, and particularly oil companies; and that ridding the atmosphere of carbon dioxide is on a par with the threat posed by Isis.
What could he have been smoking?
Asking and answering the question: “Why Paris?” the writer does briefly bewail the terrorist attack, but soon turns away from the shock and horror of the death toll of soccer fans, patrons of a rock concert and people enjoying an evening meal, and gets down to how it may affect COP21. The main tenor of his scribble is the awful effect increased security might have. One wonders how it is possible to put heightened security on a par with the convenience of conference delegates.
Following the Green script, he emphasises that COP21 is the last chance to avert climate catastrophe. But he then goes on to complain about the isolation of the conference from the prettier parts of the city, noting that the site is a small airport used mainly by corporate jets. This he intones might allow “VIPs to fly in and out without ever leaving the airport and conference complex”.
He is probably right. If the VIPs have any brains, they will do this as fast as their jets can turn around.
The Paris killings, he suggests, will make it even “harder for accredited journalists, campaigners, activists, even businessmen to gain access to the conference, with stringent searches, long queues and arbitrary refusals to people who may have travelled thousands of miles to be there”.
He might have added, “and in the process (delegates) will have pumped considerable quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere”. He does not, of course.
It gets even worse.
“Expect leaders, politicians, negotiators present at the conference to remain more firmly ensconced in their secure surroundings instead of travelling into central Paris to enjoy the city’s many charms.”
What a shame. Conferences like COP21 should be fun.
“It’s estimated that ten thousand or more climate activists from around the world may be planning to stay in Paris for the duration of the conference, both to demand a strong and effective agreement, and to develop their own agenda, alliances and plans for climate action.”
A lack of focus
They will be seriously inconvenienced by the “more repressive” security presence at COP21, because police officers will not bother distinguishing between potential terrorists and climate activists.
And then he notes the possibility, the terrible, hand-wringing possibility, that COP21 will lack focus. Instead, the world leaders summoned by the UN to sign a binding treaty to conquer the climate will instead talk about more immediately pressing security matters.
Gee whiz. How awful this will be. Thus distracted, agreement on a binding treaty on climate change is unlikely, not to mention the huge amount of cash being demanded to address a problem that may (or may not) affect the world’s climate 150 years in the future. There is a dreadful chance that all this terrorism business in Paris might make world leaders skid off the Green straight-and-narrow.
COP21 will not send “a clear message to energy corporations and investors that oil and other fossil fuels are no longer a smart investment – and instead to put their resources into the clean, green, renewable energy technologies of the future”.
Heavens! Investors might choose instead to put their money towards protecting themselves and their fellow compatriots and towards eliminating the scourge of terrorism.
The truth is Isis does not care a hoot about global warming. As President Barack Obama said, this attack was not just on Paris, but on the entire civilised world.
Green issues have become irrelevant.
* www.theecologist.org
** Keith Bryer is a retired communications consultant.
*** The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Independent Media.
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