Summit up

EDITORIAL FROM The Daily Crimes (Johannesburg) This week, the world’s leaders – or, at least, their next-best alternatives – will be vacationing in our city. As our guests, they will expect to be introduced to some of our local customs: kidnapping, carjacking, double-barrelled shotgunning. But no. With a security presence bigger than the military build-up in Kashmir, the summit has taken the ordinary Jo out of Joburg. Protesting summit-bums do not wear Rolexes. Politicians are reluctant hostages. Journalists wear bulletproof vests. In sum, it seems the common thief has once more been excluded from the handbags of the world’s elite. We predict that few tangible goods will be pilfered out of this gathering.

EDITORIAL FROM The Texas Lone Ranger

A gathering of oil representatives in apartheid-ridden Africa started this week. Unfortunately, the meeting has been bum-rushed by such irrelevants as Presidents (not ours, thank the Lord), Prime Ministers, Communists, Europeans, and Wind-Powered Poofs. What was designed as an energy industry PR stunt has been transformed into a limp effort at ‘saving our planet’. Children are seen hugging inflated globes. The meaningless slogan ‘One World’ is worn on T-shirts. Soft-focus videos are shown of endangered species, such as those naked tribes in New Mexico. The average Texan may ask what relevance any of this has to them? The answer is none, directly. But do not be fooled. These people are after your refinery jobs and your air-conditioning. This is a fight to the death. Theirs, or, if needs be, everyones.

PROFESSOR E.U. LEFTY IN Le Paris Parochial

It is time for a new world order. And a new world order needs a new world leader: Europe. With its shameless rejection of the Cape Town summit, the US has finally chucked the Earth and its people on to the non-recyclable garbage heap. For America, read developing world poverty and the death of our planet. With Europe in charge, a different, more attractive future might be directivised. It is time for Europe to usher in a more European future for the world. Our necessary post-colonial guilt and self-hatred must not prevent us from embarking on a new (non-colonial) civilising mission. We shall create a world where no worker is unequal to his labouring comrade; where no paycheck or tax bill is lower than another; where no community or Michelin restaurant is short of food ... Still, we must ensure that our CAP farming subsidies are not undermined. We must protect our hard-working surplus-producing unionised lobbying farmers. My book International Stalinism: An Overlooked Alternative? (€89.99) points a new way forward.

EDITORIAL FROM The Sunday Doorstop (UK).

World leaders have a moral duty to do something. The Sunday Doorstop has led the way in column inches and supplements demanding an end to deforestation. It is time the timber industry woke up to our repeated calls

DUBYA BRUDDER IN The Mozie (Mozambique)

Appeasing Mother Nature is all well and good. But for some, she is merely a mother-in-law. The kind who disses everything you do. Who never approves. Who turns up at your door and whacks you over the head when you least expect it. For people like this, Mother Nature is to be avoided at all costs. Forget this battle-axe. It’s the economy, stupid. Nuff of your sustainability chat. Give us some chemical factories.

EDITORIAL FROM THE Ecomaniac (Denmark)

The world expects. The world expects bio-diverse bio-ethical bio-logical bio-binding treaties. The world expects punishment for its energy use. The world expects caps, limits, targets and fines. The world expects a global warming of relations: cooperative partnership between corporations, governments, NGOs, IGOs, CEOs, richies, pooros, democrats, autocrats, plutocrats, dictators, trade unions, armies, militias, terrorists, and even the US and Europe. The world expects a lot. The world expects action from its leaders as it drives to the cut-price supermarket in its SUV, enjoying its wealthy, air-conditioned economy, sapping energy, consuming more and more and more, while all the time trying not to feel too guilty, donating occasionally to save the rainforests, and complaining about the environment. The world is full of idiots. There is no hope.

ITALIAN ENVIRONMENT MINISTER BILVIO SERLUSCONI IN La Stampdown (Rome)

Today, I will be jetting into the Earth summit to outline my commitment to action on climate change…when I jet out tomorrow I hope to have made a difference to the world’s environment.

EDITORIAL FROMThe Bangladesh Chronicle

The world faces a crisis greater than at any point in its history. At present trends, by the year 2050 there will be three thousand billion people living in the downtown area of Dhaka. The rich world – with its declining birth rate, and widening obesity – must provide unlimited aid. The people of Calcutta need more cars.

EDITORIAL FROM peAked! magazine (Australia)

As Sherpa Tensing famously said to Edmund Hilary halfway up Everest, ‘I don’t know if we’ll ever reach the summit, and even if we do, will it be that great?’ As they arrive at the Ayers Rock summit this week, the world’s leading climbers would do well to keep this wise sentiment in mind. For reaching the summit is one thing. Knowing what to do when you get there, isolated and alone as you look out over the world, is another thing entirely.

EDITORIAL FROM THE Martian News (courtesy of ET Monitoring)

These earthlings, they kill me – as well as themselves. One poxy little planet, and what do they do? They destroy their own environment for profit. They make three times as much food as they need, and yet they can’t feed themselves. They say they can’t cure diseases they can cure. They are so comical. As the old joke goes: ‘What did the earthling say to the Martian? As long as I get ten per cent, take anything you want.’ Oh well, not to worry. Their time will soon be up. The invasion plans reach the senate next week. Their water and their atmosphere will be ours. Finally, they will come to realise their own mortality. We will make sure of that!