"It's a lot of uptight, middle-aged men doing the negotiations, who need to see through their particular little spheres of self-interest..." - Thom YorkeShould we really be surprised that a large number of old, rich men, who have done just fine fucking the world to this point, aren't going to produce the required outcome from COP15? Given that the ruling elites of China, USA, India and Europe will, due to their positions of monied power, be able to insulate their friends and families from the risks of water-induced conflicts, issues of food and energy security and the unrest induced by migratory pressures (at least in the short-term), is it not just the slightest bit predictable that the best to come out of the COP circus is likely to be a few gallons of green-wash and a thinly veiled two finger salute to every other fucker that walks, crawls or flies on this planet? Would it have been different if Katrina had totalled New York as opposed to New Orleans? What if Beijing was disappearing under the waves not Tuvalu? Oh well, next year is supposed to be a more active year for hurricanes in the Atlantic, perhaps one will take out Manhattan and COP16 will be undertaken in an atmosphere of greater urgency.
Addendum: it's even worse than I thought it would be, COP15 has produced absolutely nothing. Ab-so-fucking-lutely nothing. They haven't even produced a document that requires signing off by the heads of state. Laughable. Obama is hamstrung by the Republicans; and China and India aren't going to take any significant steps until every member of their populations has a BMW, a 32" plasma TV and a Tesco loyalty card.
Addendum 2: the bad news just keeps coming, two of the more significant outcomes of COP15 are that the Chinese have agreed to some level of outside scrutiny with regard to carbon usage (albeit they haven't agreed to any targets, so there is nothing to scrutinise) and, in return, the Chinese have had the long-term target of halving emissions by 2050 dropped from the accord (and, presumably, any future agreement).
31 comments:
actually darrell-volkswagen has its foot in the door in china,so its audi"s that are popular-A6"s to be precise,not bm"S,perhaps barvaria is missing a trick! anyway the conference was never going to get results,all the talk of reducing emissions is missing the point,while the population grows, the shit will continue to hit the fan...funny how at these conferences they do not seem to mention population growth...
Human population growth, global climate change, catastrophic biodiversity loss,...
Interesting about Audi though, all the wankers over here have been dumping BMWs for A4/A6s, another global trend?
oh well-looks like Obama is a cripple and nothing is going to change from the top.
Time for either the Birder's suicide squad to reduce the population or a BMW and Audi terror campaign.
Do you have to be a birder to join the BMW/Audi terror campaign or can us generalists join in the fun too?
Ho-ho-ho (as someone once said at approximately this time of year) :-)
Oh God, sorry, I didn't think there were any people out there who were still so dull as to be sceptical of the science underwritten by 190+ countries' governments (even the US and China accept the science they just prefer dollars to the well-being of every person on this planet); it is only the ill-educated, the scared shitless and those working for the oil/coal-based industries that are pretending to doubt it.
Henrik Svenmark! Oh please stop, I just pissed myself. Any other fairy stories you'd like to share with us?
I just thought of two more categories of people that deny climate change: 1. those people that know they'll never get the chance to breed and, therefore, have no investment in the future; and 2. those men who doubt they are the father of their children (for the reason stated above).
If you can think of more categories of people who would naturally deny climate change (apart from the mentally ill or educationally sub-normal) please add them below.
Man U fans?
New category - people that hate Tuvalu?
I think it is more complicated. There are at least two groups: a. the people who actually think anthropogenic climate change is untrue, this is probably the people who are busy chasing round after stuff at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the developmentally stunted and the educationally unfortunate; and a second group b. people who know it's true but who have, mistakenly, decided they are better off if nothing is done about it, this is the people who currently live in a relatively comfortable (western) situation, think they can insulate themselves from the worst of the results and are totally and utterly morally corrupt.
Relatively rich, middle to old-aged, white men in western countries. They either think they can pay to save themselves and their families or they (subconciously?) can't handle the guilt that it happened on 'their watch'.
I think climate change denial in the UK says more about the inadequate education system in this country and the scientific community's inability to explain complicated problems to the masses, than it does about the deniers themselves. The deniers are to be pitied, their schools failed them and the educated elite are incapable of explaining the processes at work to the 'man on the street'.
Dear Anonymous 10:00 AM, I was going to write a carefully crafted reply listing every attempt I make to mitigate for my carbon production. But, I really can't be arsed. Suffice to say - you don't know me vewy well do you.
To take your points in order:
1. "meaningless ticking", if referring to my trips to the Azores, I have only ever had two "ticks" on those islands, the term you were struggling for is "meaningless birding" which is surely what we all do, all the time.
2. I'm going to persist in taking your views on climate change as a long drawn-out joke, if I didn't I'd start getting deeply and profoundly depressed and end up moping about the house listening to Joy Division, reading Sylvia Plath and staring into the darkest recesses of Rothko's later work (or would I?).
3. wind turbines, I fear this is the real nub of your comment. I don't think it is any secret that a small part of my job revolves (ho-ho) around undertaking EIAs for wind farms. This isn't the same as being blindly pro-wind; in the same way as, when I'm doing an EIA on a light industrial development I'm not blindly pro-John Lewis distribution park.
4. regarding the reference to 400m wind turbines, I assume this is artful use of hyperbole, not unlike Brown's use of 'x days to save the planet'.
Happy New Year.
The research that supports the idea that man is causing climate change is paid for by governments, research councils and all the standard funding bodies. The research that doesn't support the idea is paid for by multi-national oil and coal interests. Go figure.
Anonymous Al don't allow yourself to become a mouthpiece for the black gold boys just because you don't want a wind farm out the back of your house.
PT
One or two people on here seem to have been 'educated' by Fox News or the tabloids. Are these comments from your Young Republican US readership? Let's just hope they don't have jobs which require evidence-based decision making of any sort.
If there was any doubt over the evidence for climate change (which there isn't) why wouldn't you want to take a precautionary approach anyway?
This comment string has gone totally funhouse mirror. I have one afternoon of mulled wine/sloe gin consumption followed by a days birding and you lot have leapt from climate change self-denial to identity crisis.
Is this the point I should remove the ability to post anonymous comments on this blog?
PS. If I had written all these comments, I doubt my name would have been misspelt quite so often :-)
D'ya reckon? Is that a dare? I can't resist a dare.
Sorry, got bored, and as this is a blog not a democracy or a day centre,...
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