Year 2, Month 7, Day 19: Meet The Old Boss, Same As The New Boss

A bland set of paragraphs in the Belfast Telegraph announcing the opening of the Berlin climate talks, on July 3:

Representatives from 35 countries have met in Germany to discuss how to overcome disputes over reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The informal two-day gathering in Berlin is designed to lay the groundwork for an international climate conference in Durban, South Africa, in November.

I used it as the hook for an anti-corporatist screed. Sent July 3:

One wonders what it will take to get the world to stop treating the extreme dangers of runaway climate change as the occasion for political posturing. For example, as the American presidential election approaches, one entire political party has commited itself to an anti-science, anti-reality posture on what is arguably the biggest threat humanity has ever faced. Similar political equations are found throughout the developed world. Perhaps we need to face another horrifying fact that has emerged over the past several decades: many of the world’s governments are essentially owned lock, stock and barrel by multinationals which aren’t going to relinquish any profit whatsoever. Persuading the world’s governments of the urgency of the climate crisis will mean little unless and until the planet’s largest corporations come to their senses and recognize that putting their customers (us) through what biologists euphemistically call an “evolutionary bottleneck” is an awfully stupid business plan.

Warren Senders