December 2009 Archives

It's the disaster to end all disasters.
More dangerous than terrorism, scarier than a nuclear holocaust, and all your own fault, global warming is a man made apocalypse that threatens the future of humankind.
As the most powerful men on the planet prepare to meet in Copenhagen to discuss the climate change crisis and come up with a set of rules to save us all from the end of the world as we know it, we are told that when it comes to global warming the debate is over.
But there are still many respected climatologists, politicians and geologists who believe that the greatest threat facing our civilisation is not what it appears to be.
The conspiracy theorists fear that global warming, as with the war on terror and the fight against communism before it, represents a bid by the political and economic elites to curtail our freedoms, restrict the financial markets, and maintain their own authority.
Even those who accept that climate change is happening are split on whether or not man is the cause.
While the official line of most governments around the world is that man made climate change is a scientific fact, there is a vocal minority who argue that the shift in the earth's temperature would be happening regardless of our carbon output.
Bombarded with science and scared to death by predictions of an Armageddon that would make Roland Emmerich blush, the public are struggling to come to terms with the fact that carbon emissions and climate change will now become a guiding force in their daily lives.
Conspiracy theorists say these people are being duped in order to create a multibillion dollar "green economy" and impose controls on every aspect of our existence.
With academics on both sides of the debate approaching their research with an almost religious zealotry, the debate is getting nasty with accusations, smear campaigns and a scurrilous set of leaked emails creating a war the likes of which the scientific community hasn't seen since Galileo.
The forces that stand opposed to one another are strong.
An ex-Vice President of the USA, a legion of green economists looking to make a quick buck and a swarm of liberal activists are facing the entrenched values of a world that doesn't want to forego its creature comforts, a cabal of powerful oil producers eager to protect their profits and an up and coming superpower that needs carbon to fuel its development.
But who is right, who is conning who and what is the truth behind the "greatest challenge ever to face humanity"?
One thing is for sure the debate is not over yet.