Technology, power, credibility
Eric Bettelheim, right-libertarian environmentalist, market mystic, basher of big government, protested in his defense of green growth against the jeremiads of journalists for whom pessimism has become a stock in trade. At The Week's excellent debate last night on ‘Growth can be green: the carbon market will allow us to save the planet without sacrificing economic growth,’ he flashed his Blackberry at us and proudly broke the news that the US had agreed to 50% cuts in emissions by 2050. "That might dampen some of the Bush baiting", he beamed.
Until, 10 minutes later, one of those pesky journalists pulled out another blackberry and told the assembly: "Bettelheim's report is inaccurate. Bush has not agreed to a 50% cut ... and his data is inaccurate in all these other ways ..."
Hoist by another blackberry: Bettelheim's credibility vanished almost instantly. He started by railing against the pessimistic reporters and was caught red-handed over-spinning the good news. And without the technology to allow us to check these things in real time, he would have got away with it - in the old days, no one the next morning would have remembered to correct the impression he had made the night before. Technology changes power.
Author: Tony Curzon Price
