Articles

Global warming, what global warming?
Knightshift - Tomorrow Magazine May-June 99

Denial and the stiff upper lip (British repression) are back in fashion and could provide the long - awaited solution to global warming.

Denial - that's when you refuse to believe something is happening - has been proved to be an effective way to fight cancer. Tests on sufferers have shown that it is as effective as faith healing, taking excessive amounts of anti-oxidants, visiting Lourdes, surgery and chemotherapy. This means denial - like conventional medicine - sometimes works, sometimes not.

Separately, a recent study shows that repressing emotions - ie not letting it all hang out - leads to a healthier life. Counselling, primal screaming and other whako methods of letting off steam have, says the survey, proved counter-productive. This means it is much better for you to bottle it all up - keeping that upper lip from curling - and deny that anything bad is happening.

Given all the scientific uncertainties about climate change, the really boring lifestyle reforms being demanded by the Greens, and the fiendishly complicated solutions being proposed by those on the Kyoto graveytrain - I think we should all get into denial in a big way.

That's what the US is doing and I think they're right. Contrary to all national stereotypes - this is after all the land of high-octane counselling and emotion over-exposure - the Americans are showing how nice life can be with really low energy prices. Fill up the V8 sports-ute for less than $20, control the temperature with no worry about cost, churn out energy-hungry exports so much cheaper than the Europeans... Hey, this is the way to go.

My new bumper sticker on the back of my little Lincoln Town Car reads:"Kyoto - Nien Danken!" Denial is cool.
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Life is becoming very complicated for the politically correct eater, those troubled folk who wish to avoid both animal and genetically modified products.

I bought a frozen pizza the other day that promised in very big letters to be free of genetically modified ingredients. What a relief - I really don't want to look more like a Munster than I do. And as you can see, the label also said my pizza contained vegetarian cheese. That made me feel good too because I don't particularly like my cheese to be made with the guts of little baby cows.

But there is a problem. Most veggie cheese is produced with synthetic rennet, itself the product of a genetic modification process. Certified organic vegetarian cheese is made with fungal and plant based enzymes, but these are too unpredictable for large commercial producers.

So the chances are that while my pizza might not have contained actual modified organisms (hence the word "ingredients" in the label) it came to my hungry mouth as a consequence of a Frankenstein process.

Veganism appears to be the only answer, but it is a thought so terrifiying in its dullness that it's just not worth contemplating. I think I'm going to live in denial and simply swallow that cheese and hope I don't turn into a Munster.

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And now for something politically incorrect - Pamela Anderson's breasts and how they can help promote truth in environmental reporting. The former Baywatch star whose extraordinary physical features and complicated private life continue to fascinate tabloid readers and internet surfers (ie me), has shocked the world by reducing the size of her breasts. Commentators thought this would destroy her credibility because she had built her career on her large, synthetically - enhanced bust.

In my relentless search for ways to make environmental management more interesting to a broader range of people (ie, putting the sex back into sustainable development), I would like to propose a new global award. The Pamela Anderson Sustainability Prize will reward those companies who have, like Pamela, chosen the road of truth and removed the silicone from their reports and public pronouncements.

Nominations please.