10 January 2007
Written by Jakob
Pressure works, but not well enough
Yesterday Blair said, with regards to the need for people to fly less and the idea that he as Prime Minister should act as an role model, that “I personally think these things are a bit impractical, actually to expect people to do that. It’s like telling people you shouldn’t drive anywhere.” I mentioned it in the post preceding this one. Well, today he’s changed his tune, supposedly after being pissed upon by the Guardian’s front page and George Monbiot. Now, he’s going to offset all his holiday flight carbon emissions after all.
The fucking weasel.
Great stuff, though, that he’s now all of a sudden doing that, and it’s a quite nice thought that even smug, mass-murdering, arrogant pricks like him can be coerced into submission if the newspapers call him on something. Just a shame that the most popular English news papers are the tabloids such as The Sun or the Daily Mail… But anyways, it’s not really a big thing he’s committing to – just offsetting his family’s carbon emissions for their long-haul holidays to places like the Caribbean or Miami. Not taking these long holidays and instead try to find something a little closer to home is obviously out of the question, as is – apparently – the concept of “telling people you shouldn’t drive anywhere.” But see, you *should* be telling people not to drive anywhere. Sure, that might not always be feasible, but it needs to be said. Suburban society and the transport philosophy that comes with it is roasting the planet. It needs to be discouraged. And mr. Blair is doing nothing about towards that, other than his normal lip-service.
I was glad to read that he’s now going to be off-setting his emissions. But his obvious disregard for the entire issue has already caused too much damage. That, in combination with the surveillance fetish, the quasi-bribery scandals, the compliance in killing 600000 or so civilians around the world and the constant pandering to xenophobic bigotry, means the man has to go, and the sooner the better.