Climate change enlightenment was fun while it lasted. But now it's dead

[CHIMO]

The closer it comes, the worse it looks. The best outcome anyone now expects from December's climate summit in Mexico is that some delegates might stay awake during the meetings. When talks fail once, as they did in Copenhagen, governments lose interest. They don't want to be associated with failure, they don't want to pour time and energy into a broken process. Nine years after the world trade negotiations moved to Mexico after failing in Qatar, they remain in diplomatic limbo. Nothing in the preparations for the climate talks suggests any other outcome.

A meeting in China at the beginning of October is supposed to clear the way for Cancún. The hosts have already made it clear that it's going nowhere: there are, a top Chinese climate change official explains, still "huge differences between developed and developing countries". Everyone blames everyone else for the failure at Copenhagen. Everyone insists that everyone else should move.

But nobody cares enough to make a fight of it. The disagreements are simultaneously entrenched and muted. The doctor's certificate has not been issued; perhaps, to save face, it never will be. But the harsh reality we have to grasp is that the process is dead.

In 2012 the only global deal for limiting greenhouse gas emissions – the Kyoto protocol – expires. There is no realistic prospect that it will be replaced before it elapses: the existing treaty took five years to negotiate and a further eight years to come into force. In terms of real hopes for global action on climate change, we are now far behind where we were in 1997, or even 1992. It's not just that we have lost 18 precious years. Throughout the age of good intentions and grand announcements we spiralled backwards.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/20/climate-change-negotiations-failure

[Canuckistanian]

1. Well, we had a good run

Maybe we should think about merging our DNA with cockroaches and start making plans to emerge as an intelligent species in about 500,000 years.

[Nihil]

2. Why slow them down?

> Maybe we should think about merging our DNA with cockroaches and start
> making plans to emerge as an intelligent species in about 500,000 years.

The cockroaches are far more intelligent than the majority of the "leaders"
of human "nests" so the last thing they need would be an infection of
capitalism or politics ...

[madokie]

3. I just linked to a good read about NIMH batteries in this thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x259112

If you care to read it. The oil companies and auto companies are largely to blame for the predicament we find ourselves in today. Namely Chevro-Texaco and GM.

[Nihil]

4. I remember those reports - thanks for reviving them

A classic case of favouring short-term greed over long-term well-being.

For all of our vigorous opposition on some issues, we agree on many more!
:toast:

[madokie]

5. Peace

The oilie bastards and the top tier of GM along especially Andy Card all should be in jail as I type

[The2ndWheel]

6. When we live in a world where the government must try to force us to circulate money

or else the whole structure of society begins to crumble, the environmental issues aren't going to be dealt with.