The Irresponsible
    By Jean-Marcel Bouguereau
    Le Nouvel Observateur

    Saturday 04 November 2006

    In his latest work, "A Brief History of the Future," Jacques Attali envisions total chaos for the years around 2050. After the extremely alarmist report by Nicolas Stern, former economist at the World Bank, who argues that the international community, but above all, China, India, and the United States, must urgently mobilize to contain global warming which could cause an economic recession "of catastrophic scope," American and Canadian scientists have been tolling the alarm. In the very serious review, Science, they announce that virtually all species of fish and crustaceans fished for consumption will have disappeared from the oceans before 2050 if present trends continue. That is to say too intensive fishing, industrial fishing where many fish are tossed overboard, dead, because they are too small, endangers biodiversity. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), this catastrophic scenario would be unlikely.

    But the reason put forward for this judgment is rather surprising: the extrapolation over the next 40 years of the current drop in reserves would imply "irresponsible conduct by all the industries and governments during four decades and it would necessitate an incredible level of apathy on the part of all the world's citizens for that to happen." That supposes, first of all, that the governments involved take charge of the future. Yet, when one sees the irresponsibility with which the most basic questions like those of pensions and debt are vacated and left as an inheritance for our children, one cannot but worry.

    The Stern report recently put the emphasis on the cost that global warming would embody, a cost equivalent to the cost of the 1929 crisis. All inaction will result in "disturbances to economic and social activity - similar in scope to those that followed the biggest wars and the Great Depression of the first half of the Twentieth Century.

    While Great Britain calls for signing a global agreement to reduce carbon dioxide emissions within two years, the White House has undoubtedly acknowledged the report, an acknowledgement that does not prevent the United States from being the most significant greenhouse gas-emitting country in the world - 25% of emissions for 5% of the global population.

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    Jean-Marcel Bouguereau is editor in chief at the Nouvel Observateur and editorialist for the R publique des Pyr n es, for which this article was written.