Begging Bowls and Ebbing Tides

Samoan Peril: Please Help

Uh, oh.  It looks as though charity is growing coldly disdaining.  The Samoan Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi put out the begging bowl last week in the UK.  Global warming was about to inundate his island country paradise.  Samoa needs the world's help.  Some cynics thought the sub-text was, "Please send money."

His moving plea was published in The Guardian, long time mouthpiece for global warming propagandists.  But, if the Guardian's comments roll to this piece is any guide, it appears there is growing scepticism about global warming, even amongst the Guardian's readership.  James Delingpole, writing for Breitbart London,  takes a peek:

The Prime Minister of Samoa has launched a heartfelt plea in the Guardian newspaper on behalf of his allegedly drowning Pacific nation. (H/T Bufo 75)

Unless concerted international action is taken to deal with the threat of 'climate change', apparently, small islands like his will be "inundated by rising sea levels."

Tragically, it looks as if this request by the splendidly named Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi, is destined to fall on deaf ears.  Even a fair chunk of the Guardian's impeccably green, left-liberal readership, it seems, is now sufficiently well-informed to appreciate that sea levels aren't actually rising in any dramatic, significant or unprecedented way, and that the "drowning Pacific islands" meme is just a piece of a Third World blackmail designed to guilt-trip richer Western nations into stumping up more aid.

Here's one comment:

I'm afraid that, just as was the case with the Maldives story, this is an utter fraud being attempted by a money grubbing politician. Check the facts about what is happening.

And:

So, Mr. Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi, just how much money do you want?

And:

And even more to the point, only 7 percent of Samoan land area is below 5m above sea level. So the plea for action for small, vulnerable nations like ours, seems a bit of a stretch as far as Samoa is concerned, even though some other places may be going the way of Atlantis.

Still another commenter points unhelpfully to the fact that most Pacific Islands are in fact growing not sinking.

Samoa, incidentally, is hosting the third international conference on small island developing states (Sids), which will be attended by the planeloads of the usual enviro-loon suspects, including no less a personage than the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

This news has left at least one of the Guardian's commenters cruelly unmoved:

I've got a brilliant idea for you. Video conference.

Gosh, people can be so heartless, sometimes, can't they?

And the comments thread has not warmed at all.

One Samoan commentator wrote:

Maybe you Brits you move to Samoa, as their highest mountain is 6096 ft, much higher than your Ben Nevis.  Seriously, a mountainous island lamenting about drowning, more "climate change" inspired clap trap.

The critical commentary provoked one "true-blue" global warmer to opine:

This is the saddest, most narrow-minded collection of comments I have seen in a long while. It's really frightening how people who could be well-informed choose not to be because that way they can maintain their comfortable lifestyles without the inconvenience of a troubled conscience. The climate is changing whether you want to accept that or not. The fact that random people still feel the need to, at the slightest provocation, publish their opinions which go against a prime minister at the frontline of the issue plus 97% of relevant experts really blows my mind.

Please, if you are writing to the Guardian, make sure your facts are accurate.  It's 96.00457% of relevant experts, silly.  And how does one get to be admitted to the group, "relevant experts" one wonders?  Just maybe there is a teensie weensie bit of tautologous circularity at play.  Just sayin'.