The Angry Exile: Hardly a ringing endorsement for Kyoto type polices

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Monday, 5 December 2011

Hardly a ringing endorsement for Kyoto type polices

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Global carbon emissions reach record 10 billion tonnes, an increase of almost 50 per cent in the last two decades, according to the team at the University of East Anglia (UEA).

I'm not going to go into the University of Email Context and the less said the better about beginning an article with an opening sentence that reads more like a headline.* Instead I'll just note that the Kyoto Protocol was supposed to stabilise atmospheric levels of some 'greenhouse gases' by reducing emissions, that it was bloody expensive, and that emissions went up anyway. In other words even if you buy into the argument that CO₂ emissions are a problem the solution, although to be fair it was touted as an initial step, has been an abject failure.

And in case that's not convincing a few days ago a post appeared on Watts Up With That entitled 'What Didn't Kyoto Do?' which made a similar point with some interesting additions.

The entire goal of Kyoto was to drop total country emissions (not per capita emissions) to 1990 levels. Since the population has gone up since 1990, to drop total emissions back down to 1990 levels means that per capita emissions have to drop even further, to well below 1990 levels. Kyoto was supposed to encourage the EU folks to undertake some serious reductions of emissions.

But at the end of the day, despite all of the noise and all of the fury, the US did a better job at reducing per capita emissions (down 14% compared to the 1990 values) than the EU27 did (down 12% compared to the 1990 values).

It is also interesting to compare the absolute values of the changes. In the EU27 with Kyoto, the emissions dropped since 1990 by 1.1 tonnes per capita. Remember that this includes Germany, which artificially decreased the average emissions. Bear in mind as well that one effect of Kyoto was to move energy-intensive industries outside the EU27, which also artificially decreased emissions.

In the USA without Kyoto, emissions dropped since 1990 by more than twice as much, a reduction of 2.8 tonnes per capita. The US had no Kyoto incentives and punishments, didn’t drive out energy-intensive industry, and despite all of that had larger emission reductions, both in absolute and in percentage terms, than the EU27. Go figure.

Indeed, but that's only the half of it.

Meanwhile, Chinese emissions went up, not down but up, by a whopping 4.6 tonnes per capita … and there’s a whole lot more capitas in China than there are capitas in the US and EU27 combined. China by itself wiped out all the gains of the EU27, and all the gains of the US, and turned them all into a net increase. And that’s just China, doesn’t include Brazil and India and all the rest of the developing world.

So, hands up everyone who's for more of the same? Those who've profited so handsomely off the back of Kyoto I don't need to answer.

* Telegraph readers may guess that the article is by Louise Gray without following the link, and they probably won't be surprised to hear that the photo beneath the subhead about carbon emissions shows some cooling towers emitting water vapour.