One of Ours

What Bjorn gets right that the left doesn’t understand and the right has yet to embrace is that the key to sensible environmentalism is getting priorities right. With limited financial and political resources to address problems we can’t attack all problems in the same way at the same time; so we need to be smart about what problems we do tackle and in what order. The problem with Kyoto isn’t that it can’t be ratified (which it can’t) or that it won’t work (which it won’t) or that it’s too costly (which it is) or that the science doesn’t justify it (which it doesn’t). It’s that there are for more substantive and pressing ecological problems (overfishing and lack of potable water, to name just two) that deserve immediate attention and that we can actually do something about.