R.I.P. dear Peanut — Is COP-29 the Swan Song of the Oligarchy?

By: Jonathan Swift Memorial Society

Harey Tales, is an occasional post capturing the views of Hares with respect to those deranged Malthusians claiming unceasing love for them.

“Hopsy!  Hopsy!”

Hopsy looked up from the Almanac he was studying and saw his friend Wopsy bounding frenetically toward his front porch.  As Wopsy neared, Hopsy could clearly see an anguished look on his face, and as he drew very close, Hopsy was astonished to see tears running from his eyes.

“Oh. . . Oh,”—his friend gasped for breath—“Oh Hopsy have you heard?  They have murdered dear Peanut!”

Flopsy, sat upright.  “What?” he exclaimed.

“Government officials came into his house, seized him and took him away.  Then they assassinated him through lethal injection.  And they did the same thing with his harmless friend Fred the racoon.  It’s horrible.  It’s outright murder.”

Flopsy slowly shook his head, laid the Almanac on the table next him, and very quietly said, “So, it’s now come to this.  They’re not content with launching wars and slaughtering other humans; now they’re coming after our friends.  Squirrels, racoons—it’s only a matter of time before they get around to hares.

“It’s horrible, horrible, Flopsy.  I didn’t know P’Nut, but I was a fan of his on Instagram, and he was such an inspiration to all of us.  I don’t know what to do.  It’s awful.”

Flopsy stroked his whiskers—which he was very proud of—thought for a moment, and said, “Sit down, Hopsy.  I want to tell you about something going on right now which may change everything among the humans.  It might bring them to their senses.  Sit down my friend.”

Wopsy, collapsed onto a nearby Morris Chair and looked at Flopsy, sorrowfully but expectantly.

Flopsy began, “Tell me, Wopsy, have you ever heard of the Conference of the Parties?  They hold annual meetings known as COP conferences.

“It has something to do with climate, doesn’t it?”

“Exactly.  Well for some years now they have been attempting to dictate policies which will kill hundreds of millions of humans.  They are attempting to murder millions of their own species just as they murdered Peanut.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because they are evil oligarchs who hate other human beings.  Well right now they are holding another of these ‘COP Conferences’, this one in a place that I believe is called Baku, and from the reports coming in, it is not going well at all.”

“How so?”

“Well, it seems that at past conferences they have passed all of these oppressive rules to force countries to reduce energy usage—which will kill lots of people—but now, lo-and-behold, it seems none of the countries are obeying these rules.  I think this is their 29^th conference, and they have done everything they can to force obedience, and it just isn’t working.  It seems people just aren’t willing to kill themselves because of a lot of phony green gobbledygook.”

“That’s good.”

“Yes.  Well, things have gotten so bad that at this conference the President of Azerbaijan—the host of the Conference—in his opening speech, denounced the whole COP agenda.  It seems that oil and gas account for around 90 percent of Azerbaijan’s exports, and President Aliyev told the conference that his nation’s oil and gas reserves are a ‘gift of God’, and that ‘countries should not be blamed for having them and should not be blamed for bringing these resources to the market because the market needs them, the people need them’.  He also denounced very forcefully ‘double standards’, ‘political hypocrisy’ and the way in which the oligarchs ‘lecture other countries.”

“That’s sticking it to the Man!”

“Yes it is.  But these green ghouls have even bigger problems.  There seems to be a death pall hanging over the whole conference, a sense of foreboding doom, like the fabled House of Usher.  And it all has to do with the election of Donald Trump to be President again.”

“Yaaay, Trump!  My man!”

“Yes, Yes.  Well, the oligarchs are not so happy as you.  The U.S. Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy, some flunky named John Podesta, delivered remarks at Baku of extraordinary pessimism.  Despite vowing that some in the United States would continue the fight ‘to make the world greener’, his whole speech was one long lamentation about the Trump victory.  Trump will pull out of the COP conferences and the Paris Accord. Trump will cut off all funding for fighting ‘climate change’; Trump will produce massive amounts of fossil fuels; and on and on.  I’m not even sure it was the speech he intended to give.  It seemed that he couldn’t help himself, he was so unhinged.  By the end he was practically begging the delegates to forgive the United States for electing Trump.”

“Sounds great.”

“But that’s just the beginning.  There are still a few nut-jobs like UN chief Antonio Guterres and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, but all they kept saying is that countries must give a lot more money to the green mafia.  And guess what?  No one is going to do that.  Everywhere, countries are not just violating the climate rules, they are beginning to ignore them completely.  China is burning coal like there is no tomorrow.  Europe is beginning to throw off the green shackles.  They have no choice.  You even have the sometimes-reliable newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, publishing an article just yesterday, titled ‘Signs of Impending COP-ocalypse: Too bad this year’s global climate confab won’t be the last’.  They note that almost no one is paying any attention to this year’s conference.  And they also point out that there now exists almost zero support among nations on the planet for the emissions targets that were dictated by Paris Accords.  Their conclusion to all this is: ‘It makes you wonder if COP29 may be the last time anyone tries to organize a spectacle like this’.  Most importantly though, they state that the election of Trump has changed everything.  And not just for the United States.  Countries want to grow.  They want to be productive.  And with Trump in the White House a new paradigm of development becomes possible worldwide.  We are now on the cusp of a potential great turning point.”

Wopsy sat up, rubbed his eyes, and said, “Well this is all cheerful news.”  He let out a sigh.  “I needed it.” 

“But you see, my dear Wopsy what this portends?”  Flopsy reached out and took his friend by the paw.  “If the humans can stop killing their own people; if they can defeat their own oligarchy and learn to just be ‘human’ again, then a much happier world becomes possible.  Not just for the humans but for all of God’s creatures.  A human society which values life would not tolerate the atrocity committed on the poor Peanut.  We can all live in peace.”

“I can say Amen to that.”