"The Climes, They Are A-Changin`"; Or, Dylan Does Copenhagen
Apologies, but I can`t resist:
I saw a news item earlier today – “Copenhagen climate summit borrows Dylan’s voice” – that indicates that the COP 15 organizers (the 15th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, to which Pres. George H.W. Bush & Congress made US a party) are making informal use of Bob Dylan`s “A Hard Rain is Gonna Fall” as a conference theme (“UN to release ‘Hard Rain’ film with Bob Dylan tune on eve of climate talks | Spero News“).
Well, a different Dylan song popped into my head; tweaked very slightly, it goes like this:
The Climes They Are A-Changin’
Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the climes they are a-changin’.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the climes they are a-changin’.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the climes they are a-changin’.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the climes they are a-changin’.
Dylan`s original, The Times They Are A-Changin` is here.
I intend no offense here to anyone; those with different predilections on climate and the problem of government and rent-seeking will see this and other Rorshach Blots differently.
But for readers that have made it this far, I note the following:
- Rex Tillerson, Exxon CEO and Margo Thorning of American Council for Capital Formation both support carbon taxes;
- In this they agree with prominent NASA climate scientist James Hansen, recently arrested for an anti-coal sit-in and author of a new book, “Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth about the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity”, who says the cap and trade approach being taken at Copenhagen is “fundamentally wrong”, plans to boycott the meeting and hopes the talks fail;
- leading property insurers Allianz, Munich Re and Swiss Re advocate steps to forestall, reduce and prepare for climate change;
- While Exxon has made much of its decision to no longer fund climate “skeptic” PR shops like CEI and Rob Bradley`s Institute for Energy Research (and new “free market coal” MasterResource blog) – both places frequently feeding Bob Murphy – growing mountains of evidence document the efforts that fossil fuels firms make to maintain status quo and the sweet deals that they have under it;
- there is plenty of common ground, where libertarians and progressives should both be able to agree on regulatory changes that would promote market freedom, competition and clean energy: A libertarian immodestly summarizes a few modest climate policy proposals – TT`s Lost in Tokyo.
Recent Comments