February 5, 2007

By Mike Johnston

I am sitting in a truck in Whately Massachusetts going over the daily Climate Change/alternative energy news feeds and posting stories to the blog. Sometimes when I am doing this I can't help but be struck by the irony of seemingly unrelated stories which, when taken together, mean something totally different than either story meant on it's own.

In the background is REM playing "Its The End of The World As We Know It (and I feel fine)" and again the irony is delicious.  The two stories today that sparked this line of reasoning are especially fun because they just add one more layer to an already familiar socio-economic pattern. The first story is entitled "Global warming to hit poor worst, says U.N.'s Ban". Now there is a no brainer. Seems like everything hits the poor worse (including capitalism). How bad will it be to be poor if the world gets more and more out of whack?  Pretty bad according to most experts. Now there is another good one, if you are an "expert" on poverty does that make you just an observer or should the responsibility to end poverty be inherent to claiming that title?

At any rate, while the poor will get poorer and more uncomfortable sitting in their sweltering hovels/tenements/welfare housing projects drinking water that has been recycled from their own excrement what will the rich be doing? Why getting richer of course, what else?

The second Story today that completes the ironic moment is titled "Financial Firms Detail Climate Change Risks,Opportunities". Isn't that just sweet? That's right my poor friends, there are opportunities for financial reward in any situation. After all someone has to build the sewer system that collects your sewage and channels it to the recycling plant where it is strained and then bottled to sell back to you don't they?

While i wrote this I remembered the famous quote often attributed to French Queen Marie Antoinette. She supposedly said it on the eve of the French revolution when she was asked what the peasants could do who could not even find bread to eat. As the story goes her reply was; "Let them eat cake". While the validity of this quote is in dispute now among scholars the gut sentiment behind it remains unchanged. So today when the sweltering masses of the poor look to the rich and ask, "what can we drink?" apparently the reply is going to be; "Let them drink piss". We have come so, so far, haven't we?

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