Hurricane Rita....

Hurricane Katrina, Rita…

Saw some pictures of the devastation in the US after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. God, what devastation! Just imagine the most prosperous country in the world going through such humiliation. They have the best resources, the best government machinery, the best executive and legal system, the best business corporations. But to be humbled by a hurricane? Seems impossible doesn’t it?

But Politicians will never learn. While people throughout the world cluck their tongues in genuine sympathy, Johnwriter — the confirmed rebel that he is — thinks otherwise, as is his wont.

Johnwriter is not tired of saying “Kyoto Protocol”, “Kyoto Protocol”, “Kyoto Protocol”, “Kyoto Protocol”, “Kyoto Protocol”, “Kyoto Protocol”, “Kyoto Protocol”, “Kyoto Protocol”, “Kyoto Protocol”, a hundred times if need be to drill into readers’ minds.

Senator Al Gore had vouched for the Kyoto Protocol and if elected President of the US he would have implemented the terms of the protocol that would have cut the dreadful greenhouse gases emission. The protocol intended to reverse the emission of greenhouse gases, say, by five per cent every year. Senator Gore recently vented his ire after the recent hurricanes, I presume, to no avail. Now American should ask George Bush the same question Al Gore has been asking, “Why didn’t you sign the Kyoto Protocol?”

That way Bush will go down in world history as the president who blew it for Americans as well as the world. Or, Bush didn’t push the Kyoto Protocol. To put it simply, blame Bush for Katrina and Rita and the endless Sophias, Valeries, Janes, and Charlottes to follow.

Imagine what would happen if the world heats up as it has been doing. The icecap in the Arctic and Antartic would melt (it has already melted 20 per cent) and with the climatic changes heralded by them many cities would be submerged. Bombay is just one of them. Johnwriter lives in Bombay and has gone through hell the past few weeks, no, months. The wetness and dampness has got his goat.

The enemy isn’t nature. The enemy is our total insensitivity to nature. We have ignored it in our quest for progress out of “greed” and “laziness.” In the past few years the number of American millionaires have doubled. Now, this is serious matter. The number of American millionaires has doubled because a lot of people living in the margins of poverty have been pushed below the poverty level. It is this same poor people who have been affected most by the hurricanes – Rita, Katrina – that have such alluring feminine names.

Now nature has a way of hitting randomly and the pictures are for all of us to see. That is, torn housetops, flooded streets, people waiting in line for food, sick people being rescued, people paddling a boat, etc.

Johnwriter has been accused by many of meandering. Now let him get to the point after all the meandering and waffling. Write this in your hearts and foreheads, “The world is not going to get any better place to live if we keep throwing tons of carbon dioxide and chlorofluoro carbons into the atmosphere every day. The world is heating up and dying.”

So give up living in air-conditioned splendor and stop emitting a lot of hot air and come out and campaign against greenhouse gas emission. Better still, ask George Bush to push the Kyoto Protocol. If you don’t, there wouldn’t be a world worth living in for you, our children, and me.

Of course, this is a rant, and Johnwriter is not afraid of ranting, notwithstanding the raised eyebrows of his critics! More later….