Its their fault...

You see, the problem with being President of a big country is that you generally have to pay people to get you elected in the first instance, then when you get up there they start tugging at your jacket and asking you not to be so hard on them while they're making a buck or two.

So when the rest of the world get it into their crazy heads that perhaps we're spewing out too much pollution into the atmosphere, and that such behaviour is going to kill us all, eventually, and that we should perhaps try not to do this thing in the future, then in private, as President of a big country you probably nod your head and say to your wife "they're right you know, we have grandchildren too"

So you go to work the next morning and you call your advisors and tell them all about what you were talking about with your wife last night and you tell them that as a very big country you should really be leading the way and showing the rest of the world how to stop burning up all the fuel and how to stop turning the sky black with smoke and pollution and wouldn't it be good if we could be a big country that is also the cleanest country in the world.

And your advisors, who are wiser than you, for wisdom is not a pre-requisite for Presidents for that is why he has advisors, all stare at you as though you have just grown another head and they ask you if you are running a temperature today and should they call your very own Presidents physician for some aspirin ?

So you tell them again, we are a dirty country and we're using up all of the resources that we have and whats more we can't continue like this or my grandchildren won't be able to breath when they are my age.

And they all look at you again and shake their heads and one of them whispers to you that the only reason that you get to sit in the Presidents chair is that the bad people who burn all the fuel and cause all the polution paid for you to sit there and if you clobber them then they will shoot you dead like they did in the 1960's.

And so you ask if there is any other business and can someone turn up the air conditioning please as its got really hot in here all of a sudden.

And when you get to go on the annual junket and piss-take that is called the G8 summit for some reason unknown to you, you can slap backs and shake hands and pat the head of Tony from Great Britain who is busting a gut to try and get his country to reduce fuel consumption and not polluting anything at all by the end of the year by charging his people a years salary to fill up their car petrol tanks and by throwing them in prison if they leave a landing light on at night and it works because his little country only needs one power station now and it only works part time too, but they are still choking to death because your own country exports its pollution to them now, you saw it as you flew all the way across the Atlantic in that big 180 seat jet with only you on board, all the way above those black carbonised clouds.

And at the end of the meeting when all the other countries have agreed to fine their citizens for having the temerity to use their central heating in the middle of winter and they ask you to sign the agreement to do the same you stall for a bit and tell them "its not really our fault you know" and just to make the point you blame two other countries who you didn't invite so that they can't answer back or agree to reform, and you tell everyone its their fault as well and you need to think some more about this as its not really that bad is it and where is my private oxygen tank ?