To: Electronic Telegraph <et.letters@telegraph.co.uk>

Re: Bush’s rejection of the Kyoto protocol - perhaps a blessing in disguise

Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001

 

 

 

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Dear Sir/Madam,

 

President Bush’s rejection of the Kyoto protocol is disappointing, but hardly comes as a surprise, and perhaps  - hopefully - will prove to be a blessing in disguise (Bush defies Europe over pollution, 30 March, 2001).

 

If Al Gore had become President, as everyone with any environmental sense had hoped, agreement would have been assured – and most people reassured that our politicians had recognised the danger and were now taking the necessary counter measures.

 

In fact, no politician I know of has recognised the real danger we (or our children) are in, or the extent of the economic changes necessary to avert it. Society as a whole is behaving as an individual will sometimes behave when faced with the symptoms of a life-threatening disease: by choosing to ignore them completely (President Bush & Co) or by playing down their significance (Blair, Schröder, Al Gore etc.).

 

Our situation may be compared with that of the Apollo 13 astronauts. Only when their life-support systems were seriously damaged, all they had to do was hang on until they got back to Earth.

 

When Spaceship Earth’s life-supporting ecosystems start to break down – as they will in the coming decades if we continue on our present course – there is nowhere for us to get back to. We have to sort the problems out - i.e. establish a sustainable economy and lifestyles for 8 – 10 billion people - on board ship, or perish.

 

The sooner we start in earnest the better will be our chances of survival.

 

We can forget the Kyoto protocol, which barely scratched the surface of the problem,  the roots of which lie deep in our economic system (holy cow that it may be) and in some (not all) of the values, attitudes and aspirations on which it is based.

 

James Lovell’s immortal understatement - “Houston, we have a problem”  applies equally well to Spaceship Earth.