Saturday 23rd of November 2024
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suicide watch .....

suicide watch .....

Barack Obama stepped into the chaotic final hours of the Copenhagen summit today saying he was convinced the world could act "boldly and decisively" on climate change.

But his speech offered no indication America was ready to embrace bold measures, after world leaders had been working desperately against the clock to try to paper over an agreement to prevent two years of wasted effort - and a 10-day meeting - from ending in total collapse.

He offered no further commitments on reducing emissions or on finance to poor countries beyond Hillary Clinton's announcement yesterday that America would support a $100bn global fund to help developing nations adapt to climate change.

He did not even press the Senate to move ahead on climate change legislation, which environmental organisations have been urging for months.

The president's speech followed the publication of draft text, obtained by the Guardian this morning, that reveals the enormous progress needed from world leaders in the final hours of the Copenhagen climate change summit to achieve a strong deal. The draft says countries "ought" to limit global warming to 2C, but crucially does not bind them to do so. The text, drafted by a select group of 28 leaders - including UK prime minister, Gordon Brown - in the early hours of this morning, also proposes extending negotiations for another year until the next scheduled UN meeting on climate change in Mexico City in December 2010.

In his address, Obama did say America would follow through on his administration's clean energy agenda, and that it would live up to its pledges to the international community.

"We have charted our course, we have made our commitments, and we will do what we say," Obama said.

But in the absence of any evidence of that commitment the words rang hollow and there was a palpable sense of disappointment in the audience.

http://www.countercurrents.org/stratton181209.htm

The criminals in Copenhagen are not the 1,000 activists who were arrested in the streets for demanding real solutions to the growing climate change crisis.

The criminals are those politicians and the corporations they represent, motivated exclusively by the pursuit of profits, who are unable and unwilling to address the causes of climate change.  

There is a growing consensus among scientists that we must reverse the global growth in greenhouse gas emissions before 'runaway' climate change becomes uncontrollable.  Rather than finding ways to address this crisis, US & other Western delegates, along with the Wall Street bankers, are busy discussing how to profit from climate change, by constructing a massive international speculative market buying and selling carbon emissions. These "Cap & Trade" schemes will allow major corporations to profit from their pollution.

The biggest climate criminal on the planet is not even allowed to be discussed at the Conference.  By every measure, the Pentagon is the largest institutional user of petroleum products & energy in general (where is the commitment of the world's largest energy consumer when it talks of a $100billion fund to 'assist' developing countries in dealing with the effects of climate change when the Pentagon will burn $1 trillion next year alone on its 'endless war on terror'). Yet the Pentagon has had a blanket exemption in all international climate agreements since the Kyoto Accords.

The Pentagon wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; its secret operations in Pakistan; its equipment on more than 1,000 US bases around the world; its 6,000 facilities in the US; all NATO operations; its aircraft carriers, jet aircraft, weapons testing, training & sales will not be counted against US greenhouse gas limits or included in any count.

The climate talks will not solve the climate crisis, nor are they intended to. These talks provide a cover for politicians to pretend to address the crisis while conspiring to increase profits for the corporations they serve. The pretended debate over climate change & global warming at the Copenhagen Conference is a struggle among the national corporations for their own interests.

The best way to immediately clean up the environment is to shut down the Pentagon. What is needed to combat climate change long-term is a thoroughgoing system change - a change that puts people & the climate ahead of the blind pursuit of profits.

the fat lady sings .....

So that's it. The world's worst polluters - the people who are drastically altering the climate - gathered here in Copenhagen to announce they were going to carry on cooking, in defiance of all the scientific warnings.

They didn't seal the deal; they sealed the coffin for the world's low-lying islands, its glaciers, its North Pole, and millions of lives.

Those of us who watched this conference with open eyes aren't surprised. Every day, practical, intelligent solutions that would cut our emissions of warming gases have been offered by scientists, developing countries and protesters - and they have been systematically vetoed by the governments of North America and Europe.

It's worth recounting a few of the ideas that were summarily dismissed - because when the world finally resolves to find a real solution, we will have to revive them.

Discarded Idea One: The International Environmental Court. Any cuts that leaders claim they would like as a result of Copenhagen will be purely voluntary. If a government decides not to follow them, nothing will happen, except a mild blush, and disastrous warming. Canada signed up to cut its emissions at Kyoto, and then increased them by 26 per cent - and there were no consequences. Copenhagen could unleash a hundred Canadas.

Discarded Idea Two: Leave the fossil fuels in the ground. At meetings here, an extraordinary piece of hypocrisy has been pointed out by the new international chair of Friends of the Earth, Nnimmo Bassey, and the environmental writer George Monbiot. The governments of the world say they want drastically to cut their use of fossil fuels, yet at the same time they are enthusiastically digging up any fossil fuels they can find, and hunting for more. They are holding a fire extinguisher in one hand and a flame-thrower in the other.

Discarded Idea Three: Climate debt. The rich world has been responsible for 70 per cent of the warming gases in the atmosphere - yet 70 per cent of the effects are being felt in the developing world. Holland can build vast dykes to prevent its land flooding; Bangladesh can only drown. There is a cruel inverse relationship between cause and effect: the polluter doesn't pay.

But our politicians have not chosen this sane path. No: they have chosen inertia and low taxes and oil money today over survival tomorrow. The true face of our current system - and of Copenhagen - can be seen in the life-saving ideas it has so casually tossed into the bin.

http://www.countercurrents.org/hari191209.htm

What about....?

Slowly but consistently so far, the interest in the Greens is increasing.  I know that the policies of Bob Brown and his party are "inconvenient truths" and have been for many years - and yet - IMHO they have been the most consistent in demanding action on climate change?

The Green's policies have never changed for many years and their story has had some effect on the Australian landscape.

Is it a case of “out of the mouths of babes” or is it a genuine and calculated effort to force Australia to reduce our emissions?

The Liberals want a perfect, completely international and enforceable agreement to reduce carbon emissions – really, even after Copenhagen – is that a realistic objective? Or a way of protecting the biggest polluters?

China, as one of the highest emitters, is working desparately to overtake their industrial development with alternative energy resources.  Various states in America are doing the same. 

But Australia is doing virtually nothing – and yet – we are the biggest polluter per capita in the world!

As I see it, the Greens are too dedicated to a complete and total change in minimum time.  This could be disastrous.

The remnants of the Howard “New Order” want to indefinitely delay any sincere action until every single country in the world “carries their weight”. Disneyland.  Fair dinkum.

How would we genuinely feel if the Rudd government achieved its goal of a system of compensation to the people for the effects of transforming our energy requirements to a more climate friendly style?  I use energy to provide my oxygen every day and I don't mind if I pay more for it.

How would we genuinely feel if the Greens were to support Rudd’s ETS IF it went a little further by negotiation?  And the moderate Liberals put aside their bitchiness to work towards a solution and an example to the world?

I cannot but feel that Rudd was right in trying to have Australia lead the world especially since we were the biggest per capita polluters. 

Then we could genuinely argue for progress?

IMHO – a positive solution for Australia, could be Labor joining with the Greens and, if necessary, a double dissolution to achieve that coalition.

We Australians have weathered world wars and the Great Depression – can we allow ourselves to suffer some inconvenience to reduce our emissions?

I think we can and God Bless Australia.  NE OUBLIE.

 

So, Copenhagen failed, So?

With respect John, while criticism of our own government and that of virtually all governments in the world is justified on what has happened to our planet over at least a century of warning, we have a problem and we must act on a solution.

IMHO nothing is more aggravating than continuous complaining about a problem without any genuinely enforceable cure. Surely the advantage that we must accept is that we do have an alternative?  We do have a way of correcting our centuries of abusing nature?  Who will step up first?

On this site we keep coming up with ideas and suggestions for at least an attempt to correct a situation which affects every person on Earth but, the untrustworthy politicians are thinking about their own futures.

It is probably comforting for people to think like Abbott, Abetz and especially Minchin, that they could win the next election by opposing any system that may affect the back-pocket, but not the climate.  After all, they will all be dead when the “big hammer” falls.  Fair dinkum.

IMHO the Rudd government has so far proceeded in the best interests of our nation and have copped the flack from people who do not represent all Australians or the future of our descendants.

To their credit, the TV has been promoting the “clean” methods of farming and showing that it can make a profit.  Only the “middlemen” have any reason to complain.

I remember “Bundles for Britain” during WW II and I can say with confidence that we Australians are more stoic than our “baby boomers” seem to indicate.

It appears to me that the deniers of the world climate problem are those whose interests are solely in the profits of the situation as it stands. That cannot translate to progress.

God Bless Australia.  NE OUBLIE.