Shaking Up the Bali Climate
Conference, Literally
Whatever their brains may tell them, human hearts are strongly prone to read meaning and intention into what happens around them, and not be satisfied with “coincidence” as an explanation. It’s just natural to anthropomorphise.
So The Lede will perhaps be forgiven by even the most Vulcan of readers for the first thing that came to mind about the news this morning of a moderately strong earthquake just off the island of Bali in Indonesia: Ah! Gaia’s calling card.
You see, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, with thousands of delegates from 180 countres, happens to have just gotten underway there (more on the conference on our sibling blog, Dot Earth). And the earthquake appears to have been just strong enough to give the conferees a good shake, without causing any significant injuries or damage or touching off a tsunami.
Yes, earthquakes are common in Indonesia whether thousands of climate-policy grandees happen to be hanging around there or not, and no plausible case could be made that their arrival or their weighty arguments or their expense-account spending could have somehow nudged the tectonic plates just enough to touch off a temblor. It’s got to be pure coincidence.
Still, one thinks with a smile, if the natural world did have a mind and personality of its own, isn’t it just the kind of thing an earth goddess might do?
To be continue in other article...
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