We’ll always have Paris …

Posted by Pointman on November 13, 2015 · 10 Comments 

This is another guest article by Graeme, one of our regular contributing authors. It deals with the dire consequences of deciding nothing at COP21, otherwise known as the climate conference of 2015 in Paris. I’m not quite sure, but I think Graeme is trying to outdire all those dire prognostications which have been force fed down our throats in the run up to the great tax-sponsored jamboree. You’ll have to make your own mind up.

Strangely enough, quite a few of them meet with my approval …

Pointman

—-<0>-—

“I don’t care what anybody says” warbled Bishop Cyril Twombley “two golden unicorns on a chasuble is ostentatious, especially when it will only be worn for the Grand Parade at the opening of the Conference”.

He looked around for approval, which was readily forthcoming from Dean Uriah Heep, who might have come late to religion but with 25 years experience in big business he knew when to agree with the boss. Cyril beamed and indicated the dish of scones on the table between them, for the two were comfortably ensconced in armchairs in front of a roaring log fire, partaking of afternoon tea.

Outside the Springtime wind might howl like a banshee, with intermittent rain or hail, but the two had no intention of going out to check the temperature, humidity or any other parameter. That was for young curates in The Church of the Fiery Coming.

Cyril sat back with a smug look on his face, no great difficulty as that was his usual expression, the other expressions were a mild look of displeasure, a peevish look if something went wrong, and lastly a look of terror, but that only appeared when the Archbishop made a visit.

Uriah was thin-faced with a distinct foxy look and always looked slightly anxious in case he missed some nuance of religious life, for as said, he lacked the family background and the long experience of Cyril, but made up for the deficiency with the rat cunning that had got him out of the Company before it collapsed in the scandal.

Heep himself had come under suspicion for surely as CFO he must have understood the desperate financial position of the Company, but he denied this pointing out that much was unknown until after he left the Company and the finagles of the charismatic President came to life. Queried why he had collected a number of files that might have incriminated him, he responded that had been at the urging of the President and delivered to him on his luxury cruiser at his request. If the files were recovered then he, Heep, was confident that he would be exonerated.

As those files were at the bottom of the ocean, along with the now ex-President and the cruiser following the mysterious explosion, they would have to take his word for it. Heep did not show outward signs of great wealth and claimed a sudden call to religion as the reason for his departure. Indeed his position in the Church was supported by unseen influence from various quarters that caused the investigators some nervousness.

Unsolved was the large donation from Central America to the Church just as he joined, and which he had been appointed to administer, but the authorities lost interest in trying to unravel its origin after they paid the ransoms and got their investigators back. The public and Congress were far more aware of the flamboyant ex-President and his blatant guilt that investigations unravelled. The colourless Heep attracted little media interest even before the rumour that the ex-President had been seen on some island in the South Pacific. Numerous members of the media, the public service, political assistants and three members of Congress had an extended holiday over that before it fizzled out, and by then Heep was almost forgotten, as he wanted.

Historians had been blaming David Cameron for the breakup of Great Britain even before it happened. With Europe in turmoil over the flood of welfare seekers, and growing economic problems threatening a split, a growing majority in the UK wished to leave the EU but Cameron’s twists and turns to avoid this only made things worse. True he had problems with unruly and intransigent Scots but he was hardly the first P.M. in that position.

The sudden death of the Queen only months after the Duke of Edinburgh didn’t bring him the support he thought when he called a snap election. In seat after seat Conservatives refused to vote for him to continue in office, so Corbyn became P.M. on the same day as the results of the Scottish referendum were released and the immediate unilateral declaration of independence.

The two countries slipped into chaos, not helped by the surprise talks on uniting Ireland. Charles had not yet been crowned and was suffering from double pneumonia brought on by his refusal to wear a coat or admit that the climate was getting cooler. His sons, William and Harry, acted with determination and ruthlessness. The Royal stamp, art and jewelry collections, along with knickknacks worth a few hundred million, were loaded onto the Royal Yacht, which sailed initially to the Bahamas. After some bargaining they departed to NZ despite the protests and lamentations of the Australians.

Corbyn had little choice but to appoint Princess Anne as Regent but his simultaneous attempt at fast de-carbonisation of the economy was a disaster. All the carbon dioxide emitters shut down, and the non availability of Scottish wind power proved the sceptics right. In the great blackout neither newspapers, TV nor the internet were available so the BBC were unable to blame it on climate change. The economy crashed and masses of people thought of following Will and Harry to warmer climates where English was still spoken, only to find those countries had closed their borders to stop the hordes also wanting somewhere warmer, for Global Cooling was well underway. Charles slipped away, but where he went was unknown, although those mourning at his funeral assumed that he would not have gone anywhere hot. At least he got a ceremonial funeral, unlike many  refugees, for many were fleeing the increasingly desperate conditions in their homelands.

The Regent Anne disappeared during the Great Blackout and it was only some time later she was discovered running an educational charity in East Africa. Corbyn appointed Monbiot as Guardian of the Realm, leading to bad jokes about the Ghost writer who Talks. Hordes of Scottish football fans took to raiding hotels and off licenses in the north of England. Lacking official response and uniforms, the locals armed themselves with cricket bats inflicting fearsome casualties. The English Defense League suddenly sprang into prominence as another election loomed and polls suggested Corbyn’s days were numbered.

The Church of the Fiery Coming was set up in those days as a result of some sarcasm. An obscure blogger variously known as the Pointman, The Point or To the Point (historians were unable to decide) had written that in Climate Change there was no science only dogma, no reason only blind faith, but preaching of hellfire coming was never ending, so the believers might as well call themselves a Church. The adherents reacted by doing just that, with the added advantage that Corbyn and Obama both granted Diplomatic Immunity to office bearers as one of their respective last acts in office.

This almost unique benefit attracted many to the ranks; all those hard faced men (and women) who had done well out the Global Warming come Climate Change scam rushed to become clergy. It was costly but the relief from getting their deserts at the hands of those defrauded rendered that as a minor consideration; besides it was cheaper when paid with other people’s money. Many of the useful idiots, gullible ones such as BBC announcers etc. crept into the congregations rather than admit being fools. Besides, the Church of England had collapsed into bankruptcy. From very early in its existence The Church of the Fiery Coming accepted large donations in return for office, so they avoided that fate.

Scotland applied to join the EU hoping to replace English subsidies with bigger ones but they were just in time to be caught up in the chaos of the collapse of the EU. It was a slow and complex affair with temporary unions as believers tried to keep some semblance of the original, and acrimonious sundering as nationalists gained an upper hand. The latter blamed the incredibly expensive renewable energy drive for the loss of industry and those jobs, whereas others persisted in claims that renewable energy was cheap and created jobs.

The debate ended when the money ran out because the increased burden of welfare for millions of ‘refugees’ made it impossible to continue the subsidies. Many wind farms were left rusting and the real cost of PV solar surprised many supporters, especially as “the spanish tax” for connection to the grid became general. In the latter case Renewables did generate jobs as new companies sprang up to remove PV panels and restore roofs to their original condition.

The Church of the Fiery Coming protested at the abandonment of old follies, but economic hardships eliminated any hope of them continuing. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but it surely also leads to a very hard look at unnecessary expenses.

Greenpeace ended in one last folly, as it launched raids on nuclear power stations attempting to shut them down. Faced with potential disaster various governments reacted with unexpected firmness and gave long jail sentences to the survivors. Putin having gained control of most of The Ukraine deposited those not shot in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, and left them to the wolves.

Eventually Europe split into its old nation states, with some bound by treaties as an insurance against Russia. This was a fading threat as a colder climate demolished its pretensions to great powers status. Canada froze, and essentially became part of the USA as most of its population fled south. The USA staggered but survived. Agriculture was badly affected and the wheat farms had to move 200 miles south, displacing the corn belt. The removal of subsidy on alcohol for fuel in the attempts to balance the budget, eliminated the corn fuel lobby. The big demand for food left the remaining corn farmers too busy to complain, at least until wintertime.

The Church of the Fiery Coming protested, claiming that renewed warming would occur. As the net effect of emitting large amounts of CO2 for over 60 years was colder weather, their protests were ignored by previously malleable politicians.

The Middle East and North Africa became total disaster zones. As they had in the past imported most of the wheat which constituted a good deal of their diet, the sudden world-wide shortage was catastrophic. The fall in income from oil made it worse. Various sects decided this was the time to take over, usually for the purpose of massacring non sect members. Life became perilous especially when forty sects fought over the same diminishing population. The tide of refugees heading for Europe was vast and the treatment of those who survived the voyage brutal, but still they came. Life in Europe as a slave who was fed was deemed better than starving while trying to avoid execution in their homelands.

The Church of the Fiery Coming launched an appeal for the refugees, but the money appeared to have been used to employ them at very low wages as cleaners and servants in the Church, or so the Daily Telegraph claimed. The rest of the media said nothing, continuing their lack of criticism of anything to do with Climate Change.

India and Pakistan collapsed. Neither were prepared for the regular failure of the monsoon. The result was fragmentation and bloodshed. South East Asia suffered too, but were able to get some relief by the increased agricultural output from Australia, as the south became wetter. Once again, they grew wheat almost to Lake Eyre.

China also suffered from the colder weather and the monsoon failures, but they had never believed the nonsense about Global Warming and had been taking steps for years to prevent disaster. They had bought up agricultural land and businesses in Australia, NZ and Africa so their population didn’t go hungry, unlike North Korea. China refused asylum to the fleeing Kim and returned him to Pyongyang. The video of him being torn apart on the tarmac were banned by many TV channels as too graphic.

The aging population of Japan found that they had been conquered by South Korea, who when asked to explain by the USA merely pointed out that “it was their turn” to be in charge. The USA realized they couldn’t do anything about it, and with the turmoil in the North decided to wait on events.

The Church of the Fiery Coming became engulfed in a schism, between the green cassocks and the blue cassocks, or the Windies and the Sunspots as they were known colloquially from their preferred way of “saving the World”.

The Windies favoured wind turbines whereas the Sunspots preached the benefits of PV cells to light their churches and abodes. Their dislike of the electricity grid meant they were forced onto batteries as a reserve after the Great Blackout. The predictable happened, proving the sceptics right, as many Sunspot churches blazed with light during the day but were close to pitch black at night, whereas the Windies churches were often beacons during the night and dank, dark and dismal during the day. Consequently they re-connected to the electricity grid but didn’t publicize that fact. That came unstuck when the electricity grid controllers tired of irregular bursts of supply and followed the spanish lead of charging for feed-in.

No one expected the Spanish Requisition and a number of churches closed while others made do with the original inadequate methods.

No such discomfort for our two scone eaters, because Uriah had brought a gas-fired diesel generator, which was installed in a rundown cottage, formerly occupied by a gravedigger, near the boundary. Claims that the Church had a generator in the crypt were denied and disproved by inviting the BBC to film the crypt and the whole church building.

So Bishop Cyril sat in comfort, as the refugee girl bought in a fresh pot of tea, and expounded on the forthcoming Conference to Uriah Heep. We’ve got over 50 countries coming to Paris, nearly a thousand delegates registered, and I will be there, of course, and you must come as well. And the news about the global temperature rising 0.2℃ in the last ten years will be released by Hereditary Grand Deacon Cole Hansen to get the BBC excited. Our Archbishop Jeb Bush the third – even the Bushes realized that George the third wouldn’t be suitable – is confident of an agreement.

“I know” exclaimed Cyril. “I will wear my purple chasuble with the gold tulips embroidery, for surely Paris will end in an agreement: it is after all 2115”.

©Graeme No.3

Related articles:

You can’t have it both ways.

Click for a list of all articles by Graeme No.3

Click for a list of other articles.

Filed under Article · Tagged with cop21, GraemeNo3, Humour