Crude Calculation

Doubtless owing, at least in part, to the pervasive evil of the fiend Assange, Ecuador has had to announce the failure of its attempt to preserve the Yasuni national park intact. Ecuador had sought to keep a moratorium on oil drilling in return for three and a half thousand million dollars from any nations which cared to contribute; but those who emit most of the world's greenhouse gases have better things to do with their money. The United States, for example, which consumes almost half of Ecuador's crude oil production, is far too busy drone-bombing Yemenis: almost certainly an expensive business. Ecuador had demanded about half the value of the expected revenue from the estimated oil reserves under Yasuni, and imposed the additional, clearly unacceptable proviso that Ecuador alone would decide how to spend it. Donations came to a paltry thirteen million dollars, with a further hundred and sixteen million in pledges which may or may not be of the Nick Clegg variety; and doubtless it serves them right.