It’s the end of the world – again

This article was published in Spiked Online 15 December 2009

Environmentalists claiming that the Copenhagen summit is ‘the last chance’ to save the planet sound like a broken record.

From crusty green protesters to besuited politicians, everyone seems to be saying that the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen is the ‘last chance’ to save the planet from runaway climate change. But considering the green movement’s history of setting ever-shifting deadlines for the End of Days, this is beginning to sound like ‘the boy who cried doomsday’.

‘We have 18 months to stop climate change disaster’, declared green convert Prince Charles on the BBC’s Today programme in May 2008 (1). Yet eight months later, the prince told a group of businessmen in Rio that we have ‘less than 100 months to stop climate disaster’ (2).