Why does the comeuppance of our foes give us such pleasure? Surely we should learn to be noble and generous in victory? "They" will live to tell the tale, and if we herald their defeat with just a touch of statesmanship, perhaps they will be nice to us when we get zapped in turn. Perhaps - but then again, perhaps not.

These thoughts crossed my mind as I read the sorry saga of the Hernia in the Hague. The story hit few headlines, and even if it had hit more, fewer still would have read them, for the silly season was upon us.

What happened was that a huge crowd of eco-politicians gathered in the Hague to try to decide which countries would be penalized, and by how much, for blowing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

We make carbon dioxide when we breathe, but, as any child will tell you, the plants turn it back into oxygen, then we eat the plants and so the world goes round.

However, modern man also makes carbon dioxide when he lives. Switch on the light, turn on the oven, step on the gas - whatever you do, see owe two will result.

For the past century the atmosphere has been getting richer in carbon dioxide. It is possible that our activities may have caused the increase - but the evidence is equivocal. It is also possible that more CO₂ may change the climate - but again, it is possible it will not.

Into this brace of possibilities the eco-politicians surged. "Give us the power," they cried, "And we will save you from a fate worse than death!"

In 1992 there was a riot in Rio when they first propounded the idea. They worked on it, and by 1997, the conclave in Kyoto concluded that the clock should be turned back to 1990. Great, except when they went back home and tried to sell the Protocol (as it became known) to their governments, even their governments saw the problem. So seriously did the US Senate treat the clock-turning exercise that they passed a Bill which would have the President impeached if he signed the Protocol without the express sayso of the Senate.

For the past three years the eco-politicians have been struggling to overcome the reluctance of their masters to commit hara-kiri, which is what the Kyoto Protocol would have required. Turning back the clock in the USA, for instance, would have required cutting back the Yank's consumption of energy by an amount roughly equal to the consumption of most of Europe. There isn't a one-to-one correspondence between economic growth and energy consumption, but there is a strong relationship. This simple economic fact the Kyoto shoguns had conveniently forgotten.

By the time they gathered in the Hague, the eco-politicians thought they had found the formula. This time they forgot the age-old feud between Britain and France. France is singularly unmoved by the eco-politicos - most of her energy comes from nice, clean nuclear power. So when Norman Prescott, the Brit eco-minister, proposed the compromise to end all compromises, his French counterpart was positively rude to him - so rude, in fact, that he burst into tears and fled the Conference, which rupture has since been named "The Hernia in the Hague," if only because it brought the Conference to a grinding halt.

I tell you this sad tale, because back home we also have our problem with eco-politicians. In our case, however, our politicians are out there on the extreme wings where socialism and fascism coincide.

They, too, have recently decided that the clock should be turned back. We should, they have decreed, eliminate all taint of colonialism. Out must go Pretoria's jacarandas; down must come the Cape's oaks; fell the Free State's willows; away with oleanders, guavas, gums and pine trees; bring in the tamboti, the kareeboom, the keurboom and the thorny acacia. Armies of workers, recently discharged from that grand old Oriental concern, Wu Kin Fuwutta, have been rehired to root out the evil roots.

Great - but why stop there? Why not get rid of wheat? It too is an intruder, and no-one has proved that it is not invasive. And how about that Mexican thug, maize? Out it must go. And sorghum, which came from West Africa? That too is a no-no . Chinese rice, begone.

So the people will starve? There has to be some cost for saving the environment, doesn't there?

And you wonder why they are now known as eco-fascists?

This article originally appeared in a guest column in Engineering News, it was also published in Green & Gold Bulletin.