A new Great Satan

Say it quietly, but I think there are signs that the zealotry surrounding the religion of environmentalism in the West might have peaked.

This is not because George Bio-pot has just come over all ambivalent about nuclear power. Most people are unaware of the various arcane sections and sub-sections within the environmentalist movement.

Rather, it has simply been the TV and press pictures of the quite incredible smogs enveloping the Olympic Stadium in Beijing and the Great Wall.

China is now the world's biggest polluter, and boy, does it show.

The long term effect of such images will be to take the massively anti-American, anti-Western steam out of the environmentalists' argument.

Expect to see the more vociferous, especially left-leaning elements in the movement gradually, ever so softly, backing away.