It is only fitting that amid the Kyoto talks in Poznan, Poland — where the Poles are being lectured how they should leave that coal in the ground, since their friendly Russian neighbors have a reliable gas supply for them to burn, instead — that we should see eye-popping rhetorical revisions to join the ignorance of history.
For exhibit A, see today’s Reuters story by Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle, “Ambitions for 2009 UN climate pact fade in Poznan.” It opens:
POZNAN, Poland, Dec 8 (Reuters) — Recession and the change of U.S. administration make it unlikely the world will meet a 2009 deadline for agreeing a full new pact to fight global warming, delegates at U.N. climate talks say.
That’s funny, because right up until . . . oh, the very moment this story went to press, we have been told precisely the opposite — that the change of U.S. administration would make it much more likely that the world will meet a 2009 deadline for a Kyoto successor. Go ahead. Look it up.
As I have said to audiences for nigh on a year, it is going to prove very confusing to the global warming industry when this issue can no longer be about George W. Bush.