While the world burns, America fiddles …

It is reminiscent of the story of Nero playing the violin while Rome burned, because of his lunacy.  In the past week gatherings of the world’s powers to discuss climate change all advocate accelerated, multilateral, cooperative action to reduce carbon emissions and change human consumption habits, except America.

The richest country in the world uses the possibility of a damper on their economy as an excuse for not pursuing cuts vigorously. Yet again the moral character of America is compromised by greed and short-sightedness.  While the UN leads nations in a debate urging concerted action, the US resists change and provides an excuse for others to impede development.  It is more excusable for developing nations like China and India to prioritise economic development because they can not yet feed and house their populations in anything like the same way as developed countries; if we want to give them clean technology that would rationalise their accelerated clean up.  Even with the poor example of the rich, these countries are moving more quickly to clean infrastructure than we ever did.

America needs to stop fiddling and set an example for us to follow.  They must rise to the challenge of being the best, not just presuming that they are.

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