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THE SARS scare caused a rush in sales of facemasks and respirators in Hong Kong.
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Whatever happened to “Bird Flu” virus?
Vic Barlow16/ 8/2006
DO you remember the Millennium Bug? How many businesses was that going to cripple? Aircraft would fall from the sky, emergency services grind to a halt, banking collapse. Billions of pounds was spent to cope with a catastrophe experts around the world claimed to be inevitable. What happened? Not a damn thing, even the digital watch I bought from Asda for a fiver treated the turn of the century like any other day.
Then came Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS. It was going to cross continents and paralyse the world. Who said so? Experts. You couldn't buy a facemask or a respirator in Hong Kong at any price. So, when did you last suffer from SARS?
More recently we had eminent physicians predicting a bird flu pandemic that could, according to one newspaper, infect 70 million people in the UK alone. We were all sufficiently traumatised not to notice that statistic to be ten million more than the total population.
In Scotland they actually blockaded a town where a dead swan had been discovered as if bird migration could be halted with bollards. Millions of ducks, chickens and geese were forced inside hastily erected buildings, wealthy nations outbid each other for available vaccine to protect their citizens. Well, it didn't happen but by God a lot of business was done on the back of the threat.
So, you'll forgive me if I'm not as moved by global warming as 'experts' would like especially since every month is the 'hottest, driest, wettest, coldest' since records began. What I do know is the money generated by the threat of global warming trumps all others.
Car manufacturers, supermarkets, the aerospace industry are all having a field day, not to mention the incredible opportunity it affords government for increased taxation. Anyone resisting the now popular belief that the world is heading towards catastrophe must be looked upon with scorn.
Well, I'm sorry but I don't buy it. Don't get me wrong if I was Joe Henshaw I'd be screaming 'global warming' from the rooftops while counting my cash by the skip load. Were I a car manufacturer I'd have the lowest emissions and highest sales since records began. Global warming is the biggest cash bonanza the world has ever seen.
- THE views expressed on this page are those of Vic Barlow and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Express.
Most recent 2 of 7 user comments
Typical.
29/08/2006 at 13:26
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