The Back Burner

The World Bank has approved a loan for a state-owned South African company to build a large coal-fired power station. The United States, which is deeply concerned about climate change when other people are causing it, protested against the loan by not voting against it. The United Kingdom, which believes that climate change can be prevented through the use of cuddly coal and sustainable uranium and has spent the last seven years helping the United States to kill Middle Easterners in the name of perpetuating its dependence on fossil fuels, abstained along with the US; as did Italy, Holland and Norway. A spokesbeing for the World Bank said that despite the efforts of the US and Britain "it was not an easy decision", and that "everybody recognised the concerns about climate change, but this was a balancing act". The survival of the species is, after all, only one of many problems with which the business community has to concern itself, and like other minor matters it must occasionally be disprioritised in favour of profiteering.