Climate Crisis Hits Jakarta
Jul 26th, 2007, in News, Opinion, by RossRoss complains that the global warming/climate change bandwagon has reached Jakarta.
There was a strange event in Jakarta in recent weeks. In fact most Jakarta weeks witness strange events, but this one had global significance and concerned, of course, global warming!
Scare-mongering of the Al Gore variety has long since spread here to Indonesia, abetted eagerly by the pro-Communist Jakarta Post newspaper and its hangers-on. On 18/7, the poor old JP had to trot out the nation’s “leading feminist”, a chick named Julia Suryakusuma, who ended a long, boring article with dire warnings of the world melting down. This gal can tell amusing tales when she puts her mind to it, but she really should lay off serious issues and stick to sex, which she loves to scribble about.
Julia Suryakusuma, climate change expert.
However, the main attraction for paranoid pinkos in the city was the big meeting, “Climate Crisis” as it was advertised slavishly by the Post a week or so back, starring a speaker named Emerald Starr.
One assumes from a name like that that it’s a female, but not here. This Emerald had his photo in the press and is a baldy old man. But still a star, because he’s “selected and trained specially” by Al Gore (remember, the millionaire who is so concerned for the climate that his home eats up energy like there’s no tomorrow! Yes, that’s him, the non-candidate who deserves top marks for his cleverness in devising the weather as a means to edge out Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the coming Democrat selection process. Still not sure. Well, he’s the man whom a leading Czech statesman described as off his rocker.)
Al Gore, climate change expert.
The ads for the rally indicate that, as in America, big money is behind the big scare. It was officially organized by the Jakarta Post, Subur, a major printing company and Equinox, the publishers, and supported by many of the international hotels in Jakarta here, notably Le Meridian, the Borobudur, the Westin, and Nikko, plus the German Centre for Trade and Industry, the World Wildlife Foundation, Aksara, the bookstore chain, the British International School, where super-rich expats and locals send their kiddies, and sundry lesser enterprises, including Bugil’s Café. A motley crew indeed. Let’s hope that tourists who object to their money being splurged on propaganda exercises avoid these glitzy limousine-liberal lodgings and that thinking parents who spend a fortune on their children’s education take note of what they’re endorsing.
Needless to say, I didn’t attend the fun-night-out, but then neither did many non-rich Jakartans. Only 200 (JP report 19/7) out of between 12 and 18 million – nobody really knows.
8 Comments on “Climate Crisis Hits Jakarta”
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Peter says:
I would agree with Odinius.
Despite the irresistability of trashing Al Gore, the serious investigator will find that global climate change is happening, and furthermore that it is clearly evident that it is being brought about by our greenhouse gas emissions. And I would disagree with your caption saying that Al Gore is a climate change expert. He is not quite an expert, but more of a public relations person. And I do not base my conclusions on his movie (which I haven’t seen), but on scientific books and articles.
Patung, it seems that your “Indonesianness” is coming through in this article, in the form of distrust for America and “big money”.
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Odinius says:
The big money in america has always been opposed to accepting climate change as science. If it was any other way, the US would have backed the kyoto protocols, which it has not.
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Nenek Sihir says:
Anyone who thinks the Jakarta Post is pro-communist cannot be taken seriously. This Ross dude, with his 1950s McCarthy-speak, hates anyone who is even slightly to the left of George W. And good heavens: Indonesian WOMEN with feminist views daring to write about climate change in haze and smog-choked Indonesia – the absolute cheek of them!
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Interesting take on climate change…just want to clarify one small point. Attendance for the Emerald Starr event was free so I am not sure how that would have stopped “non-rich Indonesians” from participating. Also, from all the “big money” names you mentioned, no money changed hands and all support was provided in-kind. I should know – I organized it.
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Ross says:
The fact that it was free should have meant a bigger turnout, surely.
Climate change is remarkable, a handy battle-wagon to carry Gore into 2008. As you all know, plenty of people doubt its bases, and that Czech politician is hardly a hard right crusader.
I certainly don’t have unmitigated admiration for Bush -anyone who apoints deviants to ambassadorships hardly merits conservative esteem.
But who is this Nenek -a Grandma of the La Pasionaria sort, who has lost her perspicacity with great age?
Anyone who reads the JP’s constant carping – its demands that we welcome the unrepentant totalitarians of the PKI back, or who sat appalled at the revolting eulogy of the late and unlamented Red butcher Ho Chi Minh in its editorial columns, can’t fail to recognise that they are playing the Commie Game. Sorry, Nenek nenek, I was too young for politics in the 50s, but I understand the reds were murdering millions then in China, just as they did in Russia through the 20s and 30s…. try studyng history. -
Other than an opportunity to post a picture of Julia S., was there a point to this article?
That she states consistently that each of us is partly responsible for climate change and that each of us can be partly responsible for mitigating the effects seems to have eluded Ross, who only seems to be interested in denigrating those he feels uncomfortable with.
But if this is one of the few places where he is sighted, then I suppose we should be grateful. After all, his hot air leaves a very small carbon footprint.
If anyone is really interested in the effects of climate change on Indonesia, then have a good browse through the Worldwatch Institute website. And if you want to know what Jakarta could be like in 100 years time, then I’ve posted a possible scenario here.
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At the end of the day Global Warming is happening. So whether it is Al Gore bringing peoples attention to it or someone else they dont deserve to get abuse. Fair enough he may be using it to hisfor his own gain in politics but aslong as he continues to bring a very serious issue to the whole world then where is the problem.
What we need to do is actually get the organisations to emply energy saving techniques and reduce theuir carbon emissions. If we can do this then we are half way there but at the moment it is still viewed as an avoidable cost.
Great article though.
Comment on “Climate Crisis Hits Jakarta”.
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Climate change is accepted science, though aspects of it are still debated (are we hastening a global desert or slower currents, which would lead to a new ice age?).
Even if this wasn’t the case, the horrific smog in jakarta should be reason alone for Indonesia to go green.
And the “big money” promoting climate change awareness can’t possibly compare to that of energy companies deliberately trying to obfuscate the issue.