When you think about it, NBC’s little promotional stunt on Sunday Night Football for their “Green is Universal” week is a lot like a mini-Kyoto treaty: it was an empty gesture that had no long-term impact on the problem it was trying to address, while immediately making things worse on their broadcast, and in the end the only thing it accomplished was to make the participants feel a bit better about themselves. They probably shouldn’t though, considering that in order to send Matt Lauer to Illulissat, Greenland (4,200 miles roundtrip from 30 Rock), Al Roker to the Galapagos Islands (6,100 miles roundtrip), and Ann Curry to the South Pole (18,000 miles roundtrip) probably created many times the carbon emissions that were “offset” by Bob Costas’ romantic candlelight rendezvous with the American football-viewing public.
Or perhaps they shouldn’t feel so bad, considering that we’re just now learning that the southeastern United States is suffering through a dreadful drought (caused, of course, by Global Warmingtm) partly because of a lack of hurricaines (also brought to you by Global Warmingtm) over the last few years:
…journalists from The New York Times to the Augusta Chronicle have blamed the Southeast’s woes on man-made carbon dioxide.
Wrote the Chronicle: “Indeed, the drastic effects of global climate change intrude everywhere on our daily consciousness – from the serious drought that now threatens cities in the Southeast to. . . Category 5 hurricanes regularly battering coastlines.”
But, according to the AP stories that ran across the nation, the drought conditions are a result of “stifling summer heat and a drier-than-normal hurricane season.”
Complained a USA Today story: “With hurricane season nearing an end, no one expects relief before winter.”
Yes, both the presence and absence of hurricanes are simultaneously the fault of – you guessed it – climate change! If only we could figure out some way to distinguish between those carbon emissions that cause lingering drought and those that cause increased hurricanes and balance them somehow.
Perhaps the UN could add that to the agenda of their upcoming UN Climate Change Conference 2007 in fabulous, sunny Bali, Indonesia! Via The New Editor, Claudia Rosett gives insight into the sacrifice that our beloved international diplomats will be making to save us from ourselves:
UN policy allows even the lowlier UN staffers to travel business class on long-haul flights (your tax dollars at work), the better to arrive wined, dined and ready to hit the ground …and the beaches … and the golf courses … and the tennis courts — running. Apparently there is so much to discuss that the conference will run for a full fortnight, from Dec. 3-14, at Bali’s seaside luxury resort of Nusa Dua.
For all those taxpayer mugs out there who have not had the experience of flying business class to spend a fortnight at Nusa Dua, check out the spectacular seaside photos of the Bali International Convention Center, with its slogan: “The Place…Where Business is a Pleasure.” For more information, page through the Bali conference outline on the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change, or UNFCC, web site. This includes a handy list of pre/post conference tours, and a list of hotels (Nusa Dua Beach Hotel and Spa, and Melia Bali Villas and Spa Resort, already sold out) plus recreational facilities: sailing, fishing, snorkeling, ocean kayaking, and, of course, the shopping gallery.
I don’t know about you, but I shudder at the thought of a world so ravaged by the horrors of climate change that UN staffers would be forced to fly coach to a two week long conference at a fabulous seaside resort.
In the meantime, though, let’s just be thankful that the UN and NBC are willing to kick out so much carbon in order to help in creating the global warming-caused hurricanes that will offset the global warming-caused drought that afflicts the global warming-ravaged Southeast US. And let’s tip our cap to Glenn Beck, who is using his perch on CNN to help out as well:
