the brilliantly leaping gazelle

Oh good, the irony police have been out in force again these last few days, valiantly attempting to prevent dangerous amounts of pollutants making people sick. Climate change has presented them with a huge challenge, not just because of the fact that polluting countries are doing the very opposite of what need to be doing, but because of all the hot air generated at conferences like COP25 taking place in Madrid right now, it gives people false hope, making them prone to virtue sickness.

As proof of this, I offer the news that,

Putin and Xi oversee launch of landmark Russian gas pipeline to China

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Monday oversaw the launch of a landmark pipeline that will transport natural gas from Siberia to northeast China, an economic and political boost to ties between Moscow and Beijing.

The move cements China’s spot as Russia’s top export market and gives Russia a potentially enormous new market outside Europe. It also comes as Moscow is hoping to launch two other major energy projects — the Nord Steam 2 undersea Baltic gas pipeline to Germany and the TurkStream pipeline to Turkey and southern Europe.

That’s right. We know we should be divesting ourselves of fossil fuels; the one’s that do all the damage, those one’s, the one’s that they properly belong in the ground. But this, after all this the China whose

Appetite for coal power returns despite climate pledge

Capacity rose by 42.9GW in 18 months, far outpacing global efforts to cut use of fossil fuel

China’s growing appetite for new coal-fired power stations has outstripped plant closures in the rest of the world since the start of last year, data shows.

Mind you, not wanting to be outdone, Ursula van de Lyen, Europe’s Commisoner for Hot Air increased the amount of hot air to dangerous limits when she made the bold announcement that,

“I want Europe to become first climate neutral continent” – 

That would be the Europe that has Poland and Germany in it? Two economies massively dependent on coal. That one. To be fair, she at least had the good manners to announce this at COP25, which has as one of its sponsors one of Spain’s largest energy suppliers. A conference where everyone can agree something must be done, and be done soonish, but no-one can agree on what that something is, only that someone else needs to do it first.

I was thinking about this last night, how humanity is doomed, doomed but still futilely believes something can be done, in much the same way that anyone who votes Conservative next week imagines that Brexit will be done. Driving through London, with countless office blocks lit up, new one’s being built next to one’s standing empty, all modern and shiny, and I thought ‘Yeah, switching off a light in my house will do as much use as a fart in a hurricane.’

As I pointed out on this blog before, I think the best thing now for the good of the planet is the extinction of our species. Had we acted much sooner, possibly the worst effects could be mitigated. But no, we didn’t and now it’s too late. Well that’s how I see it anyway, unclouded by sentiment or emotion.