backdraft

right now there are probably a few high level executives in the oil industry watching burn up, BBC2's new so called "eco-drama" about corruption and denial and apathy and greed.

where we are right now in the story is following the slow realisation of the central character, that perhaps stuff that is bad for the environment is actually bad. now, i'm a cynical bastard at the best of times so my feeling is that those high level executives are probably smirking to themselves about how weak a business man he is, and are pretty un-accepting of the fact that oil might not be the best thing for their kids.

they do make a valid point in the show, though; that we don't know for sure that oil is the main contributer to global warming. science hasn't proved it... fair enough.

but we do know for a fact that some sort of a change is happening. it might just be the natural cycle of the earth, so while there's a possibility that its not man made we might as well enjoy ourselves and burn lots of oil.

i guess.

i guess, is what they are thinking.

now, unfortunately there seems to be a lot of pussy-footing around with no real evidence of action. governments and corporations are being very polite to each other; most notably around the american government who, let's face it, are basically skipping along hand-in-hand with big fat oil producers. it's like tweedle-dee & tweedle-dumb. i had high hopes for gordon brown, but he's basically spent the last 12 months rolling out disappointment after disappointment. i'm not talking about the increasing price of filling up my car fuel tank - i don't care about the rise in the oil price as far as the consumer side of things is concerned. in the world where every cloud has a silver lining, perhaps it has cut down the amount of petrol people have bought recently. and made them think twice about buying a brand new porsche cayenne. (i recently got rid of my 4x4 as the guilt was becoming too soul-destroying.)

what i am talking about is that apparently he had some good attitudes towards environmental change before he came into his version of power, but i haven't seen any evidence over the weekly apologies, repeats of unemployment figures and back peddling. still, at least we're not being run by the tories... yet. shit, that's a depressing thought.

i went off the subject there, what i was going to say is that there is too much politeness & diplomacy where there should be raised voices & honesty. what words should be being said by those with access to the people in question are:

to the american government and the shareholders of shell, bp and esso and all the others -
you are cunts and nobody likes you. stop killing people so you can have bigger portfolios. it's just numbers on paper.

to the governments of all the other countries in the world, specifically the british -
stop being so wet. we, like you i'm sure, are aware that the world has run out of real leaders and we have to deal with the timid, politically correct wimps that now sit round the table at G8. but come on, buck your ideas up and start earning yourself a morsel of respect from the the folks in your country. you never know, you might even prove yourselves worthy of sitting in that seat.

of course, climate change champions might be completely wrong and either there is no such thing as global warming (*nonchalantly shrugs shoulders to the population of southern bangladesh*), or there is global warming, it's caused by the natural cycle of the earth and we can't do anything about it.

i dunno, we might end up with a booming alternative fuels industry though. and cooler, quieter, less polluted streets for the 100 years we've got left on the planet.
and greener golf courses,
and better quality steak,
and maybachs that run completely silently....