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Copenhagen: Things Fall Apart and an Uncertain Future Looms
Posted Dec 21, 2009 by Bill McKibben
The Copenhagen summit turned out to be little more than a charade, as the major nations refused to make firm commitments or even engage in an honest discussion of the consequences of failing to act.
[Excerpt] It’s possible that human beings will simply never be able to figure out how to bring global warming under control — that having been warned about the greatest danger we ever faced, we simply won’t take significant action to prevent it. That’s the unavoidable conclusion of the conference that staggered to a close in the early hours of Saturday morning in Copenhagen. It was a train wreck, but a fascinating one, revealing an enormous amount about the structure of the globe.
Let’s concede first just how difficult the problem is to solve — far more difficult than any issue the United Nations has ever faced. Reaching agreement means overcoming the most entrenched and powerful economic interests on Earth — the fossil fuel industry — and changing some of the daily habits of that portion of humanity that uses substantial amounts of oil and coal, or hopes to someday soon. Compared to that, issues like the war in Iraq, or nuclear proliferation, or the Law of the Sea are simple. No one really liked Saddam Hussein, not to mention nuclear war, and the Law of the Sea meant nothing to anyone in their daily lives unless they were a tuna...
Originally published December 21, 2009 at Yale Environment 360
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1 comments
What's after the Copenhagen Conference on climate disruption
From: Hal Bauer, Dec 30, 09 05:08 PM
What's after the Copenhagen Conference on climate disruption?
I wasn't there, but I watched parts of it on DEMOCRACY NOW and long for a series analyses that were made into book length, edited summaries of what was actually said. The nearly 200 countries might be broken down in blocks of interest groups with position statements. For example, though China is for the near future the largest CO2 polluter, it shares a position with India, that neither did it create the current high CO2 levels nor by a per capita rate owe that much to change, compared with the historic role of the high per capita rates from developed nations with lower populations.
We don't have the time to be pessimistic.
The central role of human overpopulation, and the way out through technical shifts from carbon to solar intensive economies needs to be country by country be surveyed.
Both of these central issues need cable and satellite channel educational and news programing 24/7, along with country by country news on postcarbon progress and failures. The up to 100 year lag time in response to CO2, methane and nitrous oxide pollution remediation is a lesson out of human experience, just as the 'growth in size' economy versus the 'growth in quality' economy.
The Cold War was lost by both the Soviet and American superpowers, it is just the latter had a better credit rating. China and other creditors will determine US policy now.