Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
I could debunk this point by point, but I'm tempted just to say 'Wanker' and leave it at that.

You won't convince Havel by arguing with him - he's doing the usual far-Right thing of flailing at people and calling them names.

The best you can hope for is to kick him out of his job.

The climate issue is almost a sideline here. What's really important is the framing, which is:

  1. Climate change doesn't exist.
  2. If it does exist, it's not man-made.
  3. If it exists and is man-made, it's not expensive enough to be worth bothering with.
  4. If it's expensive enough to be worth bothering with, it doesn't matter became environmentalists are religious lunatics and communists and fascists, all at the same time.

QED.

None of this makes any sense, but you can't deal with it by attacking Havel on the substantive issues.

The 'responsibility' attempt was an interesting one, because it tried to claim the moral high ground. But - as an adept politician - all Havel had to do is claim it back, and the argument was lost.

I think in this case it's probably best to ignore Havel and take the fight elsewhere. When there's a consensus in the rest of the West it's going to be easier to persuade an outlier like Havel, or make it an electoral issue that removes him from power.

This seems to be what's happening in Australia, where Howard's climate ignorance is being associated with the Great Drought and makes him unlikely to get another term.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Fri Jun 22nd, 2007 at 06:24:10 AM EST

Others have rated this comment as follows:

Display:

Occasional Series