This news week offers a nauseating main course. I'm going to have to start selectively targeting more positive news going forward, because this isn't working. It's not the news, it's me.

Well, in this case though, that's not true. It is the news.

Zimbabwe may become the chair of the UN committee on sustainable development.

Oh, Zimbabwe. The country with a 976.4% official inflation rate (as of 2006), 80% unemployment rate, 80% poverty rate, -4.4% GDP growth rate. Oh, Zimbabwe: transit point for cannabis, South Asian heroin, mandrax and metamphetamines. (That's from the CIA.) Oh, Zimbabwe: source, transit and destination country for women and children trafficked for forced labor and sexual slavery. Zimbabwe: where pimping is safer than politics.

Who cares about a UN committee, really? It is probably not going to be hugely important as far as practical global changes are concerned. But sustainable development? Did I miss something? Either this is some kind of a joke, or else it is a backhanded scheme to reign in on Robert Mugabe by doing this? That would seem like the only reasonable explanation for this, because otherwise this borders on the surreal.

Sadly, however, this kind of association with a dictatorial regime tarnishes not just the reputation of the United Nations, but the reputation of the entire concept of sustainable development. It is not right to misappropriate a concept and associate it with a place that is an antithesis of it. I really, really hope Zimbabwe doesn't actually get elected.

Maybe this is supposed to serve as a warning. Or, as another blogger said, given the economic collapse, at least Zimbabwe's "carbon footprint is admirable."

POSITIVE blog entries next week. I promise.

TGGWS in Iltalehti

Over Easter, I quietly fumed about how Iltalehti published a reader comment recommending -- what else? -- The Great Global Warming Swindle to Finnish viewers. Wow. Recall that one interviewee in TGGWS later claimed that he was "the one who had been swindled" as he was "misrepresented" as a climate change sceptic. (The good thing about YouTube's current copyright infringement battle? TGGWS has been removed from the web.) The Iltalehti reader commenting on the film actually argued that, "The issue that we ought to be concerned about is environmental protection... I think it is mostly the media's and politicians' fault that climate change has become a more visible issue than taking care of the world's environment and oceans (sic). They are, after all, two totally separate issues."

First of all, I'm not even sure what I was doing reading Iltalehti, and secondly, I'm sorry, but what the heck? Oh my God. It is hard to fathom someone would genuinely write such a piece. The compartmentalization is simply mind blowing. Since when were environmental protection and climate change separate issues? Since when was the environment separate from the oceans? Despite the incoherence, Iltalehti afforded that piece of writing one third of a page, advertised TGGWS and juxtaposed this with a picture of pretty yellow flowers. It was clearly an effort to provoke, since that's what tabloids are about, but it's irresponsible: polemic that instills complacency.

The least critical and the least educated are the most likely to get their "science" from Iltalehti. Climate scepticism and films like TGGWS may claim to be about enhancing scientific literacy and inspiring dialogue, but most of us do not have the education to fully understand the science of climate change, anyway. The scientists themselves do not claim to fully understand it! None of us fully understand the consequences of our actions and nobody can predict the future, but does it stop us from living our lives? No. We do the best with whatever knowledge we've got, (hopefully) not doubting our every move. So why would anyone let the climate change polemic brew such doubt that they do nothing? How cocky to think that just by observing the weather and reading the dailies one could know better than individuals who've devoted their entire careers to the subject! Scientists have very little to gain from telling us the environment is changing and we're causing it. When thousands of scientists tell us they are confident something is for real, why can we not take it on faith -- are people that untrusting with the so-called establishment these days? Can the tabloids not go back to antagonizing Hollywood?

Here's a link to the discussion. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the original comment on the web; they probably only published it in the actual paper. I especially enjoyed that comment where someone tells another writer to "calm down, you're not going to die," and the other one responds, "I most certainly will, you wanna bet?" Me too, I will most certainly die. It's probably not going to be climate change that will kill me, just like the Greenland ice sheet won't melt next year, but that doesn't mean those things won't eventually happen.