Middle Class Greenery Only "Ski" Deep
obozn
QUOTE: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the
people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of
the time."
In his Labour Party Conference speech yesterday in Manchester, Gordon
Brown, the British Prime Minister, was minded to raise his target of 60%
for cutting carbon emissions by 2050 to 80% - "And I am asking the
climate change committee to report by October on the case for, by 2050
not a 60% reduction in our carbon emissions, but an 80% cut." This
really is the very worst of political hot air, and I am afraid it is
difficult to take seriously such blather, especially in the light of two
highly-revealing surveys reported today.
The Beastly Bourgeois
First, a study carried out at Exeter University has exposed the
mind-numbing depths of middle-class hypocrisy over 'global warming', of
the very people who pontificate daily to the rest of us about carbon
footprints and eco-lifestyles. Middle-class 'greenery', it seems, is
only ski deep ['Green idealists fail to make grade, says study', The
Guardian, September 24]:
"Stewart Barr, of Exeter University, who led the research, said: 'Green
living is largely something of a myth. There is this middle class
environmentalism where being green is part of the desired image. But
another part of the desired image is to fly off skiing twice a year' ...
'Some people even said they deserved such flights as a reward for their
green efforts', he added."
A classic reply to the survey went as follows: "Questioned on their
heavy use of flying, one respondent said: 'I recycle 100% of what I can,
there's not one piece of paper goes in my bin, so that makes me feel
less guilty about flying as much as I do."
Don't you just love it! In the (also hypocritical) words of D.H.
Lawrence:
"How beastly the bourgeois is!
Standing in their thousands, these appearances, in damp England
what a pity they can't all be kicked over
like sickening toadstools, and left to melt back, swiftly
into the soil of England."
And nobody captured the beastly bourgeois better than Georg Grosz,
granted in his case in 1920s' Berlin. Is Guardianista London any
different?
Unsurprisingly, Barr concludes:
"The findings indicate that even those people who appear to be very
committed to environmental action find it difficult to transfer these
behaviours into more problematic contexts."
What a splendid piece of 'academese'!
But Public Not Fooled
All this is then beautifully supported by the results of a new opinion
poll carried out by Opinium ['British public "unwilling" to pay for
climate change costs', The Guardian, September 24]:
"... seven out of 10 of the nearly 2,000 people questioned said they
were unwilling to pay higher taxes to combat environmental issues, and a
similar number believed the green agenda had been 'hijacked' to increase
taxes."
Gordon, you are talking absolute recycled rubbish. You claim "you can
call spirits from the vasty deep." "Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?"
I think not. And, in those immortal words attributed to Abraham Lincoln:
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people
some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the
time."
80%! Your 'global warming' rhetoric has become worse than that of David
Cameron and Nick Clegg. It really is that bad:
"Anything you can do,
I can do better.
I can do anything
Better than you."
No, you can't. Not one of you!
The Guardianistas must be weeping into their lattes, poor things.
--
Warmest Regards
Bonzo
".it should not be surprising to see hordes of former Reds, or of those
who otherwise would have become Reds, turning from Marxism and becoming
the Greens of the ecology movement. It is the same fundamental
philosophy in a different guise, ready as ever to wage war on the
freedom and well-being of the individual." Dr. George Reisman's book
Capitalism
Bill Ward
> 24 September 2008
>
>
>
> QUOTE: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the
> people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the
> time."
But the real issue is whether you can fool enough of the people enough of
the time.