Pray for rain and common sense

It's hard to imagine a world leader who might be a bigger boob that President George W. Bush. But Australia's John Howard is certainly giving #43 a run for his money. In addition to picking a fight with Sen. Barack Obama earlier this year, and continually offering justification for Australia's participation in the Iraq War, Howard is now saying that the way to deal with global warming, and Australia's miserable drought, is to "pray for rain."

This is good news. Now that Howard has enlightened me to the power of prayer, I'm going to pray for an end to my student loan debt. I'd also like bigger muscles, so I'll pray for that too. I'd also like to see the return of "Growing Pains" to the airwaves, so count that among my prayers.

Of course I believe in the power of prayer, but it's kind of like that great quote, "Pray with Scripture in one hand and a newspaper in the other." Meaning that the power of prayer is useless unless you're in tune with your surroundings and realities, and have a sense of the action needed to be taken to create positive change. So it goes with John Howard. World leaders who use prayer as a policy solution ought to turn on the television and see those ice caps breaking away from the poles.

This article by Kelpie Wilson, which talks about the impending wrath of global warming on Australia, is fascinating. It shows how a massive drought, brought on by global warming (which has pushed the temperature in the Southern hemisphere to all-time highs) and the destruction of the ozone layer over the South Pole, is radically changing life in Australia for farmers, birds, yuppie residents in Sydney, and miners.

But the most interesting element of this article is the last bit about Rupert Murdoch jumping on the climate change bandwagon. That's kind of like the vultures jumping to the aid of Prometheus. But Murdoch has made a commitment to go green, having vowed to make his media companies carbon neutral.

You might think this is good news. But as Kelpie Wilson points out, Murdoch "is a master at subverting social movements to his own purposes." If you've always thought Murdoch was Machiavellian, I guess you could say the proof is in the loofah.

More Wilson:

"One view of Rupert Murdoch is that he simply hates to back losers. In that case, it's somewhat comforting to know that he sees global warming as a winning issue. But it's also important to ask how he will skew public awareness toward solutions that bring him and others of his class personal advantage, but aren't necessarily the best for the planet. Our best hope is that people will continue to be way out ahead of both government and News Corporation, and be actively involved in leading the way."

So the moral of this story is to pray for rain and engaged citizens and business leaders to lead the way on climate change. Otherwise, the right may lay their claim to the climate change issue, and before you know it, the biggest solution to global warming and terrorism will be to go shopping.