Global warming: Be even more afraid
When it comes to global-warming hyperbole, Brookings Institution scaremongers don't have anything on UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Gordon Brown said negotiators had 50 days to save the world from global warming and break the "impasse".Not only is PM Brown wrong on the science, he sounds more like a writer pitching a cheesy movie script than the leader of one of the most powerful countries in the world. Let's count the cliches - "profound moment," "momentous choice," 50 days to save the world.
He told the Major Economies Forum in London, which brings together 17 of the world's biggest greenhouse gas-emitting countries, there was "no plan B".
World delegations meet in Copenhagen in December for talks on a new treaty.
The United Nations (UN) summit will aim to establish a deal to replace the 1997 Kyoto treaty as its targets for reducing emissions only apply to a small number of countries and expire in 2012.
Mr Brown warned that negotiators were not reaching agreement quickly enough and said it was a "profound moment" for the world involving "momentous choice".
"In Britain we face the prospect of more frequent droughts and a rising wave of floods," he told delegates. "The extraordinary summer heatwave of 2003 in Europe resulted in over 35,000 extra deaths.
"On current trends, such an event could become quite routine in Britain in just a few decades' time. And within the lifetime of our children and grandchildren the intense temperatures of 2003 could become the average temperature experienced throughout much of Europe."
Fifty days to save the world!?!? Where's Bruce Willis when you need him?
Don't let these "leaders" scare you into accepting bad public policy. When December 9, 2009 (50 days from now) rolls around with no agreement and the earth still chugging along, just remember how wrong PM Brown was.
