After seeing him on TV the other night complaining about Tuvalu “behaving badly” at Copenhagen I am saving up to buy Nick Smith one of those white pith helmets with lots of feathers on top so beloved of British colonial officials of yesteryear. It would make a great Christmas present and would nicely complete the picture he presents, of, in the words of a London Tablet editorial used in another context,  “cultural assumptions of effortless Anglo-Saxon superiority.” How dare these uncouth primitive people to complain loudly about the big boys doing things that are potentially lethal to their community’s very existence.

Any attempt to find out per capita carbon dioxide emissions only demonstrates how inaccurate and unreliable the statistics are, however it is evident that the developed nations caused the problem and that the developed nations then encouraged the developing nations to join them in the feeding frenzy of consumerism.

Although we may not be as crass as Mr. Smith the actions of most of those of us who live in the technologically developed world show we are really no better than he is. There is an unspoken assumption that some how or other we have a right to use more than our fair share of the earth’s resources The first step should surely be for the developed nations to reduce their emissions until they are equal to those of the developing nations before asking the poor to make more sacrifices.

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