Going Nuclear

I’m in Asia right now. On the way in, I was reminded of the increasingly visible effects of climate change–a tropical depression had closed the airport in Tokyo, so I was diverted to Nagoya, where I and 12 plane-loads of people slept on the airport floor, hoping to reach our destinations in time for our business meetings. It took me 2 days to reach my destination, and I had to spend $300 on clothes to make do until my bag reached me. That’s going to be an increasingly common occurrence so long as our leaders (read, Bush) ignore the real effects of climate change.

And now I have to contemplate flying home just east of a newly nuclear North Korea. It worries me a bit, sure (though I’m in SE Asia, far from any fall out, real or political). But mostly it makes me weary and sad that our failed leader continues to have such a tangibly negative effect on the world.

I’ve been harping for a long time, after all, about Bush’s propensity to choose the wrong targets. He has been chasing WMD ghosts in Iraq for 3 years now, and is contemplating chasing WMD ghosts in Iran, without making effective strides to roll back Pakistan’s proliferation network. You know, Pakistan? The country that assisted North Korea to get nukes? And for that matter, perhaps if we hadn’t sown so much chaos in the Middle East, we’d have had the focus to find a real solution in North Korea.