Sunday 6 December 2009

In denial

A stark warning from Johann Hari:

If you release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere on an industrial scale year after year, the world will get much warmer, and many of us will die.

In the past few years, I have reported from three places where global warming is having a catastrophic effect –
the Arctic, Bangladesh, and the borders of Darfur.

Wonder how he got there?

Johann’s solemn warning is accompanied on the same page of the Independent website by various promotions, including:

180 FREE flights

and

Win a trip to Queensland!

and

APPLY NOW and get 1,000 Bonus BA miles with the British Airways American Express credit card

Meanwhile over at the Guardian:

When I challenge my friends about their planned weekend in Rome or their holiday in Florida, they respond with a strange, distant smile and avert their eyes. They just want to enjoy themselves. Who am I to spoil their fun? The moral dissonance is deafening.

But that was three years ago. And now:

So amazingly destructive has Canada become, and so insistent have my Canadian friends been that I weigh into this fight, that I've broken my self-imposed ban on flying and come to Toronto.

Yeah, right...

Me, I'd love to ride a bicycle, but I really, really need my Land Cruiser to get to work. I carry a lot of important papers with me, and I'd never be able to carry them on a bike. I'd ride a bike, I would, honest. But there just isn't room to carry much stuff. Especially not a laptop.