They Say, and Do Not

The Bishop of Stafford has demonstrated one of the perils of taking the moral high ground: if you throw a sufficiently idiotic hissy-fit, you might just tumble off it. The Right Reverend Gordon Mursell has drawn an analogy between the failure of "people" to do more about climate change and the crimes of Josef Fritzl, who repeatedly raped his daughter and imprisoned her in a basement for twenty-four years along with the children he fathered on her. "I am in no way trying to imply that people who ignore climate change are child abusers," the Bishop said; but on the other hand, "you could argue that, by our refusal to face the truth about climate change, we are as guilty as he is - we are in effect locking our children and grandchildren into a world with no future and throwing away the key". Apparently the idea is that people should take thought for the morrow, the evil thereof being these days insufficient to the day. The Bishop tactfully refrained from naming any of the culpable, it being no part of his moral duty to speak truth to the kind of people who derive material profit from car use and consumerism.