Why are so few here interested in the Climate Change Summit?

[G_j]

I'm somewhat surprised.

the rest of the world seems to be quite interested!

I know Americans in general could care less,

...but hundreds of protesters arrested, major environmental groups banned, phones tapped, agent provocateurs,
countries walking out, leaked UN climate papers...

hardly a blip on the DU radar.

:shrug:

[dana_b]

1. I've been reading the threads on it

but it seems healthcare is the big issue hoding everyone's attention now.

Can we multi task??

[G_j]

9. this has been like HCR on steroids

it's frightening to see that the summit is every bit as dysfunctional as the US congress.

though the huge protests really set it apart from the US

[dana_b]

18. I know!

if only we were organized like that!!


I din't think the summit would be smooth and orderly. How the hell coud all those countires agree when we, the biggest econsumers in the world, aren't setting a REAL example??

[taterguy]

2. Because Summits rarely lead to substantive change

Besides, Global Warming is bunk.

It's snowing in North Carolina today.

Case closed.

[Juneboarder]

7. Global Warming is BUNK?

Global warming is a very REAL issue...

[taterguy]

19. It's snowing in North Carolina today

What else do you need to know?

[earth mom]

50. What the fuck does that prove about global warming?

:crazy: :freak:

Global Warming is REAL, btw.

[timeforpeace]

3. It's that little ol health care thingie.

[EFerrari]

4. It's been a really long week. Nobel prize, HCR, the summit.

Plus, it's the week before Christmas.

People may just be inundated right now. :shrug:

[fascisthunter]

5. because people have lost hope of anything meaningful happening

The US being the biggest problem... very frustrating being a US citizen.

[harkadog]

12. No China is the biggest problem

And getting worse by the day. U.S. emissions are declining every year and emissions by China and India are rapidly increasing. http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2009/11/17/china-leads-world-to-higher-carbon-pollution.html

[fascisthunter]

16. Who has more weight at Copenhagen?

and who has historically benefited the most while polluting the most?

Also, I could care less who pollutes more technically... something must be done and soon. The US has done everything possible to put off actions at lessening CO2 emmisions. So I blame ourselves more so... I have no power over other countries, nevermind my own.

[pampango]

28. An American still produces 3.5 times the CO2 that a Chinese produces, there are just 4 times

as many of them, so their country produces more. It's not hard to understand why a Chinese might expect a little more from an American who is richer and produces a lot more pollution.

[harkadog]

40. China is rapidly industrializing and is not lifting a finger to curb carbon

They like to talk 'green' but they have done nothing to implement it. The U.S. has invested hundreds of billions of dollars into pollution equipment an regulations. China is the biggest polluters and India is rapidly trying to catch them.

[muriel_volestrangler]

34. Sadly, American emissions don't decline every year

They go up and down. The US fossil fuel emissions since the Kyoto agreement was made (million tons of CO2):

1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
6171.5	6250.2	6426.8	6293.4	6342.8	6391.2	6520.1	6539.6	6461.1	6569.6	6371.4

Still bigger than they were in 1998. Figures from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy.

[harkadog]

41. Thanks for the figures

I stand corrected with respect to the previous years. However the U.S. has invested hundreds of billions in pollution equipment and that number does increase every year.

[unabelladonna]

6. climate change as an issue

is ridiculous. we have immediate day to day crises to solve...healthcare, employment....

[dana_b]

8. what we do immediately, will affect us all down

the road and is seriously impacting the earth now. Don't kid yourself. This summit is more crucial than I think most realize.

[kenny blankenship]

10. Probably because it seems a forgone conclusion that it will not produce the needed change

[emilyg]

49. You got it.

[apocalypsehow]

11. I've been paying some attention to it, but I think the HC debate has been sucking up all the oxygen

in the room. So it's kinda gotten overlooked on DU, though to be fair, there have been some good threads on the topic. Especially in the Late-breaking news forum.

[timeforpeace]

13. There will be more today since Obama's people are claiming he just did something great.

[Cleita]

14. I've been watching it all week on Democracy Now! and quite honestly what

they are saying is scary. Also, the protestors have been treated like terrorists with the Danes making pre-emptive arrests. Yesterday, everyone walked out and left the oil companies, some heads of state and Monsanto still holding meetings. Hillary Clinton has come across like lying, ugly American in the eyes of other nations and I haven't seen Obama yet, but his statement on the MSM something about having a meaningful discussion, instead of saying, we made a great agreement tells me a lot. I haven't posted on it because frankly I don't know much about the issue other than it seems like the global corporatists are ruining anything meaningful happening in taking care of this crisis that is happening before our eyes.

[G_j]

17. the coverage has been awesome! if people were watching/listening/reading DN! they would understand

what I'm talking about. This is major news.

[debbierlus]

47. I have to admit, I have been distracted on health care. I have followed it loosely

And, your summary is pretty much what I got out of it.

More of the corporations dictating the policy, the rich nations bulldozing the poor nations, and the protestors being treated as if they were criminals.

The US apparently is inflaming the situation.

This is very, VERY important. I have been blogging about Afghanistan and Health Care, and I just don't feel qualified or knowledgable enough to put forth very illuminating posts on the subject.

[Cleita]

48. Me, too, but after watching what was going on and listening to the interviews

Amy has conducted with people at the heart of the issue, I almost started thinking, it won't matter if we get health care if islands sink, people starve globally and the atmosphere starts disappearing. What was heartbreaking were the indigenous people from Asia, Africa the Pacific Islanders, the Andean people and Sami from the Arctic Circle who are already starting to feel the effects trying to make people listen to them.

[G_j]

51. +1

[LostInAnomie]

15. Most people know that nothing is going to happen.

No real need to discuss what we already know.

[FrenchieCat]

20. Partly because although many call themselves "activists"

they are nothing but folks who like to argue and be seen as being right on the Internet.
If HRC wasn't consuming all of their hate,
than they'd be hating on the Climate Change Summit....
cause as long as it is something they can hate and be "disappointed" about,
they are totally content. That's the DU auto pilot inherited from simply
having survived through 8 years of Bush.
Change don't come easy, especially changes in ourselves.

[LeftyMom]

56. Get over yourself. Disagreeing with "FrenchieCat" on DU does not mean one is not an activist.

Nor does being disappointed (no scare quotes, you aren't the arbiter of whose disappointments in current policy are legitimate) in current policy efforts.

[AllentownJake]

21. Because it is a meaningless dog and pony show

Anyone who thinks after the fiasco that was Health Care reform that the democrats take up anything controversial in the slightest way is fooling themselves.

[GreenPartyVoter]

22. I am very interested, and disappointed that the USA isn't taking a stronger stance.

[Cleita]

37. USA is part of the problem IMHO.

We as a superpower have the ability to start a major movement of change and we aren't doing it because we are still beholden to our real government, the corporations, that are behind the puppet government in Washington. It becomes more and more crystal clear as each day goes by.

[G_j]

43. sometimes to lead

one must LEAD

[GreenPartyVoter]

45. It sure does.

[SIMPLYB1980]

23. Not much to fight about, any deal on

climate is good news. imo

[readmoreoften]

24. The only thing I'm watching is the level of progress. The summit itself was corrupt before it began.

These people won't change a damn thing. Systemic change is the only change possible in this instance.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

25. I am uninterested in anyone whose "effective" response to global climate change is "cap and trade"

In areas where it has been implemented, it has turned into another speculative market.

I would like to see the industrialized countries lead the way in mandating gas mileage, building walkable communities and transit systems, reforestation, intercity rail to replace short-hop plane travel, retrofitting existing communities for transit, cycling, and walking, and retrofitting existing buildings for climate-friendliness.

This would not only help the climate situation but also provide jobs.

When the developing countries saw that the OECD countries were willing to take their own medicine, they'd be more willing to follow along. As it is, all they see is developed countries trying to boss them around.

[Odin2005]

29. Cap-N-Trade is a big scam. We need a CARBON TAX.

Cap-N-Trade is simply letting corporations and governments by the modern equivalent of indulgences for their sins to make people think like they are doing something.

The Energy industry made my point a couple days ago on the BBC World Service when they blasted the EPA calling CO2 a pollutant and said they preferred "Market-based solutions like Cap-N-Trade" to EPA regulation.

[G_j]

30. certainly, this has been an opportunity to learn

about the dynamics of the politics involved.

As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, Democracy Now! coverage has been a real eye opener.
Naomi Klein has a lot of good stuff to say also.


http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/18

Published on Friday, December 18, 2009 by The Nation

The Courage to Say No
by Naomi Klein

Copenhagen

On the ninth day of the Copenhagen climate summit, Africa was sacrificed. The position of the G-77 negotiating bloc, including African states, had been clear: a 2 degree Celsius increase in average global temperatures translates into a 3-3.5 degree increase in Africa.

That means, according to the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, "an additional 55 million people could be at risk from hunger" and "water stress could affect between 350 and 600 million more people." Archbishop Desmond Tutu puts the stakes like this: "We are facing impending disaster on a monstrous scale.... A global goal of about 2 degrees C is to condemn Africa to incineration and no modern development."

And yet that is precisely what Ethiopia's prime minister, Meles Zenawi, proposed to do when he stopped off in Paris on his way to Copenhagen: standing with President Nicolas Sarkozy, and claiming to speak on behalf of all of Africa (he is the head of the African climate-negotiating group), he unveiled a plan that includes the dreaded 2 degree increase and offers developing countries just $10 billion a year to help pay for everything climate related, from sea walls to malaria treatment to fighting deforestation.

It's hard to believe this is the same man who only three months ago was saying this: "We will use our numbers to delegitimize any agreement that is not consistent with our minimal position.... If need be, we are prepared to walk out of any negotiations that threaten to be another rape of our continent.... What we are not prepared to live with is global warming above the minimum avoidable level."

And this: "We will participate in the upcoming negotiations not as supplicants pleading for our case but as negotiators defending our views and interests."


..more..



And, whenever thousands of people take to the streets for the good of all, I see family.

:-)

[FiveGoodMen]

26. We're too busy dealing with the fact that we've been played

We're mired in an escalated war and about to become slaves to the insurance companies.

The climate stuff is definitely important, but you can't be surprised if people are focusing on the monsters that are biting us right this minute more than the one that'll take a few years.

There just isn't time to extract each knife from our backs before two more are plunged in.

We're drowning in betrayal.

It's not that we don't care about climate change, it's just that we can't get our heads above water.

[Bluebear]

31. What you said.

nt

[Odin2005]

27. because it's a joke that will not solve anything.

The most that will come out of this debacle is a strongly-worded memo with no teeth, and things will return to business as usual.

[elocs]

32. So you have determined exactly what qualifies as many or few?

Exactly how did you arrive at that conclusion? Are there supposed to be a certain number of threads about the Climate Change Summit to qualify as enough, or too few?

:shrug:

[G_j]

33. it's not the number of threads

I've posted quite a few in the last few days.

It's just that the response is sparse.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7265076

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7263894

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7262215

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7254146

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7244015

[endless october]

35. more interested in healthcare and also

i think a cap and trade "solution" is not the best way to address the problem.

[G_j]

36. It's the Protesters Who Offer the Best Hope for Our Planet

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/16-5

Published on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 by The Independent/UK

It's the Protesters Who Offer the Best Hope for Our Planet

They've ensured the corporate lobbyists punching holes in the deal are shamed

by Johann Hari

At first glance, the Copenhagen climate summit seems like a Salvador Dali dreamscape. I just saw Archbishop Desmond Tutu being followed by a swarm of Japanese students who were dressed as aliens and carrying signs saying "Take Me To Your Leader" and "Is Your Species Crazy?". Before that, a group of angry black-clad teenage protesters who were carrying spray cans started quoting statistics to me about how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere can safely absorb. (It's 350 parts per million they pointed out, before sucking their teeth.) Before that, I saw a couple in a pantomime cow costume being attacked by the police, who accused them of throwing stones with their hooves.

But the surrealism runs deeper and darker than this. Inside the Bella Centre, the rich world's leaders are defiantly ignoring their scientists and refusing to sign a deal that will prevent our climate from being dramatically destabilised. The scientific consensus shows the rich world needs to cut 40 per cent of our emissions of warming gases from 1990 levels by 2020 if we're going to have even a 50-50 chance of staying this side of the Point of No Return, when the Earth's natural processes start to break down and warming becomes unstoppable. Yet the scientists at Climate Analytics calculate our governments are offering a dismal 8-12 per cent cut – and once you factor in all the loopholes and accounting tricks, it becomes a net increase of four per cent.

Privately, government negotiators admit there's no way the negotiations will end with the deal scientists say is necessary for our safety. Indeed, it looks possible that this conference won't deepen and broaden the Kyoto framework, but cripple it. Kyoto established a legally binding international framework to measure and reduce emissions. The cuts it required were too small, and the sanctions for breaking it were pitifully weak – but it was a start. Kyoto's current phase expires in 2012, but the treaty's authors believed its architecture would be retained and intensified after that. The developing countries assumed that's what they were here to do. But the US is proposing to simply ditch the Kyoto infrastructure – won over decades of long negotiations – and replace it with an even weaker voluntary deal. In their proposal, every country will announce cuts and stick to them out of the goodness of their hearts. No penalties, no enforcement.

So at the centre of this summit is a proposition stranger than any number of arrested cows or Nasa-quoting hoodies: we're playing Russian roulette with the climate, and our most powerful governments are filling the barrels with extra bullets, one by one.

..more..

[Cleita]

39. I wish we had protests like that about HCR. Universal health care would be

a done deal by now.

[G_j]

42. that is the component of the summit

which really stands out. It's people of the world, standing up to world's ruling class, who will destroy our future.

[dysfunctional press]

38. what's the point...?

nothing's going to change appreciably until it's far far too late, and it may be already.`

i'd rather waste my energies on other pointless battles.

[rd_kent]

44. Because there is a war on christmas going on! Jeesh!

[upi402]

46. It's our prime concern. It over-arches all issues

With no biosphere, no life. And all other issues are moot at that point.

[Myhrejl]

52. Why are so few here interested in the Climate Change Summit?

Because nothing productive can come out of a summit where every country's goal is to protect their own industrial national interest.

[mddem9850]

53. a lot of them are just ignorant dolts

[earth mom]

54. Global warming is a HUGE issue for me, but I feel like NOTHING will be done under Obama.

When Gore once bowed out of the '08 race, I figured that the writing was on the wall that nothing will be done by the U.S. government especially under an Obama administration that only lives to serve corporate interests.

From what I've seen of the Copenhagen summit, it's all just a bunch of bullshit. It's obvious that corporate interests around the world trump saving our mother earth.


At this point, I keep vacillating between despair and a tiny bit of hope. :cry:

[G_j]

55. actually, the alternative climate summit was probably more productive

even if these people are mostly poor and ignored.

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-12-09-copenhagen-hosts-alternative-climate-summit/

Activists rally at alternative climate summit in Copenhagen

COPENHAGEN—Amazon Indians, Malawi farmers, Tibetan monks, and Inuits from Greenland exchanged ideas Wednesday on how to combat global warming at a boisterous alternative forum in Copenhagen on the sidelines of United Nation climate talks.

“Only pressure from civil society can save the planet,” insisted Elis Ngacimek, a 30-year-old American from Kodiak Island, Alaska, where the effects of global warming are being felt and “really worrying me.” He is one of 500 volunteers helping out at the Peoples’ Climate Summit, which is expected to draw some 10,000 participants.

“I like to meet people from all over the world, exchange ideas. It’s great fun, even if the situation is not,” Ngacimek told AFP.

A harried spokeswoman for the forum whose phone was ringing off the hook, Kristine Holten-Andersen, said the event was open to anyone who wanted to take part. “Everybody can present their ideas, discuss them, and develop constructive solutions to the climate crisis, far from the redundant official speeches,” she said in between phone calls.

With its headquarters located in a modern sporting facility in central Copenhagen, the alternative summit is a colorful festival featuring 150 debates and lectures, 50 films, plays, concerts, and exhibits.

Piling up burlap bags, the kind used by islanders in India’s Ganges delta to protect themselves from the floods brought on by cyclones and monsoons, Pradip Saha of New Delhi’s Center for Science and Environment said the climate woes were “real” in his country. “Every year you have flooding and once you have flooding with sea water, the land becomes saline and you can’t farm it,” he said, showing films and photos to hit the message home. “These are very poor people, their carbon footprint is almost zero. They don’t have cars, but they are in the front line and most affected by climate change,” he lamented.

..more..