Climate Change Exchange

I received the following email from a GPCA associate today, posted to a Santa Clara County list.

According to the site in the URL at the end of that video, they did
reach some sort of agreement in the end:

http://unfccc.int/2860.php

This UN release casts the result is about as positive light as is possible. There are many other opinions, and the criticism of nations is spread equitably. My reaction was to send the following reply:
__
Everyone will call this a victory, but if it is, it is a very hollow one. It was an agreement to continue talking for another two year and to reach some sort of actionable plan before 2010,.

• That is two years in which we will have continued to build up the surplus of Green House Gases.
• That is two years in which US Government can swathe it's inaction and play Alphonse / Gaston with China.
• That is two years in which the lack of American Action will increase the enmity that we have engendered throughout the world.
• That is two years in which even a change in Administration, e.g. to a Clinton Compromiser or an Obama Dreamer, will continue to tringulate deals that allow multi-national corporations to continue screwing the planet or to move their operations to countries whose government regulators are more easily bribed.

I would suggest that everyone browse through the blog entries that Andrew Revikin has called for on his Dot Earth blog at the NY Times. Voices on Bali and Beyond is a collection of comments from people who were actually there. Here is a quote from the first responder, Dr. Thomas J. Goreau, the delegate from Jamaica, and representative of a Coalition of Caribbean nations: His target was the EU for its failure to stand up to the US stalling tactics. (Bold emphasis by me.)

This amounts to a real betrayal of all those who counted on the EU to do the right thing, and amounts to a capital crime against the environment, because millions will die as the result of unchecked global warming.

If there is a single issue that the Green Party needs to be very clear about, it is the one of Climate Change. What we do now, not what we begin to do in 2010 will have an effect on:

• agricultural policy a swarming weather makes major changes to what can be grown where and how much food might each country have to import or be able to export as a result.
• trade policies as competition for declining reserves of food and water, the basic essentials of life, make countries increasingly protectionist.
• energy policy unless we take aggressive steps to get off of fossil fuels.
• security as increased frustration with US arrogance sends an increasing flow of people towards Al Qaeda or other organizations.
• health care as diseases once considered tropical become increasingly prevalent in the more highly populated, currently temperate zones.

Have we come so far from our roots as a party that we are not the leaders in speaking out?