Still Speaking Bollocks

Just when Neil and Simon were making this blog look like the badly mangled collision of two ARSSE threads, that ever-reliable oxygen thief jumps up and allows me to return to non-military anti-idiotarianism.

Just for the purposes of this analysis, can I ask you all please (and I know it may hurt) to accept that:

1. The overall mean temperature of the earth's biosphere is steadily increasing.
2. The majority of this increase is due to the effects of the activities of the human population.
3. Air travel is a significant component of this.

Even from that point of view (and I don't personally accept as proven any of these though the published evidence appears to point to 1. being a 50 / 50 call - what is in the unpublished evidence being a significant hurdle the climate change lobby need to address), Johann Hari is still an utterly incompetent excuse for a journalist. Why?

it is collective pressure on government, not dulled and dispersed consumer choices, that the world needs now.

Let me see. Hmm. Ahh.

Countryside Alliance. On the order of 400,00 people turn out - about 6 to 8 constituencies worth if you think like a pol. Result: the Hunting Act 2004. Failure.

Stop the War Coalition. Somewhere between 750,000 and a couple of million people march. Result: UK troops still in Iraq and Afghanistan and quite probably Section 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. Failure.

Faslane 365. Not enough room for the sheer numbers but lots of juicy arrests (this one, at least, has the benefit of being funny). Result: the Vanguard boats still there and still patrolling. Trident replacement is crawling ahead. Look - another FAILURE - seeing a trend here?

I am not asking you to agree or disagree with any of the causes mentioned. It doesn't matter. "Collective pressure", or at least that exerted through large scale demonstrations rather than voting the mendacious statist cunts out, does not change this government's behaviour. So it is back to individual choices and economic pressure, which acts on market watching private companies who do react to changing customer demands. At least until the Great Clunking Fist summons the sheep to the slaughter.

Johann quotes a poor deluded (young?) lass:

Leila, a London admin assistant helping to prepare the camp, said this weekend: "I realised that if I don't take action, I'm going to spend my old age watching more floods, more droughts and more death, in the knowledge I could have done something."

In the trade, this is now known as the "Neil Clark" defence. "It's not my fault. I couldn't be arsed actually interfering with my so-important life doing something about it, so I went to a demo. I can now safely despise all of you who didn't go to my demo".