Slow road to green reform
It's been nine years since a gathering of environment ministers in the Swedish city of Malmo declared that the world urgently needed to reform the way it governed itself environmentally.
Change was needed, they said, including a "greatly strengthened institutional structure for international environmental governance... that has the capacity to effectively address wide-ranging environmental threats in a globalising world".
In other words; the existing structures and mechanisms weren't effective for an age that was finding an ever increasing number of environmental problems at its door, and realising just how interlinked those problems were with human progress.
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) didn't have the clout, it was said; responsibility was fragmented across international institutions, and the growing mountain of environmental treaties generally lacked teeth.
The ensuing years have seen various initiatives that would either reform the system or tear it up and start again. But even though many governments cite global environmental decline as a present and future disaster, there's been little progress on reforming the international bodies intended to lead the global response.
So you might think that as the issue raised its head again last week at UNEP's governing council meeting in Nairobi, the overwhelming emotion would be frustration.
And clearly there was frustration that despite nine years of talks and some constructive ideas, virtually nothing has changed.
But there was optimism too. And having spoken to some of the people at last week's meeting, much of it appears to have stemmed from just one word: Obama.
The single biggest event of the meeting was the agreement to regulate global emissions of mercury, a heavy metal pollutant with toxicities that include damaging people's nervous systems.
And the single biggest factor in getting that agreement was that the US, which had consistently opposed a binding treaty under George W Bush, gave its blessing.
The US volte-face thrust other reluctant countries such as China, India and Canada into the spotlight; and in the end, they all put their names to the deal.
This has some in the environment field hoping that the US transition will have the same impact on UN climate negotiations which reach a crucial stage at the end of the year in Copenhagen.
But perhaps more significant in the long term is the new US willingness to talk about reform of global environmental governance.
That appears to have given some other governments fresh enthusiasm for tackling the issue once more.
South Africa's environment minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk noted that his officials had told him there was no point in talking about reform, warning that "everyone will simply restate entrenched national positions, nothing too controversial, lots of code language, basically what they have been saying for nine years. It will be 'political theatre', Minister."
But, he said, he'd decided to prove them wrong, and had been encouraged that other ministers had offered "frank and constructive interventions" during the Nairobi talks.
So what happens now? Well, the UNEP meeting set up a consultation process intended to produce some kind of reform package by 2012.
Many countries, especially in the developing world, are keen to stage another major environment conference then - it will mark 20 years since the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit - and although it's not confirmed yet, the summit appears likely to happen.
The 2012 timescale may have symbolic appeal but it does present some practical difficulties.
If the UN climate talks do produce a treaty as complex as many envisage, encompassing emission targets, clean technology transfer, funds for forest preservation with the rights of indigenous peoples assured, money to help poor countries adapt to climate impacts, and so on, it could make decisions on issues that logically ought to feature heavily in the overall environmental governance discussions.
The following year, 2010, is a crucial year for biodiversity, marking the date by which governments are supposed to have restrained the global loss of species.
It's entirely possible that a new set of targets and mechanisms will emerge at the annual UN biodiversity convention talks. But they too would pre-empt the environmental governance discussions focussing on 2012.
All this might seem arcane stuff, pitting one UN process against another. But it matters.
Here's one example. Biofuels were much touted as a partial solution to climate change a few years ago. It was only once people started working out the possible implications for biodiversity, food production, water extraction and so on, and working through the climate impacts of clearing forests to grow fuel crops, that previously enthusiastic governments thought about applying some brakes.
Under a single global environment framework, that sort of problem shouldn't arise. The various issues would be considered in the whole, not in discrete parts, so the left hand would know what the right hand was doing.
So you might think it would be sensible to sort the institutional side of things out first, before complex deals emerge on any particular environmental issue.
For many developing countries, a key aspect of this is building their capacity to deal with difficult issues.
At last week's Nairobi meeting, a South American delegate noted that her government's environment department possessed just eight full-time officials.
More than 500 international environmental agreements now exist; and with many of them highly technical in nature, it's impossible for governments with such small resources to represent their interests in the same detailed, specialised, forensic way that the richer countries do.
So a developing world priority is to rationalise this pile of treaties under one umbrella organisation and provide the technical support they need.
If all this is nine years overdue already you might think a little more urgency is called for - and for some observers, the 2012 target date is so far away as to constitute a feeble response to the scale of environmental degradation.
But at least, the slate has been wiped clean and a new process started that the world's most powerful government appears to endorse.
Can it work? If it can, will the outcome be tinkering, or wholesale reform? If it is reform, will a new body include rules and sanctions, as does the World Trade Organization? How will it link environmental issues to human development?
These are all key questions, and much wrangling lies ahead before any answers emerge; but the mercury deal is being seen in some quarters as an indication that the glacial progress in many environmental issues is about to accelerate.
I'm Richard Black, environment correspondent for the BBC News website. This is my take on what's happening to our shared environment as the human population grows and our use of nature's resources increases.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~03~RS~)
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An umbrella organisation to provide technical support to the poorer nations is exactly what we need if we are serious about tackling Man Made Climate Change. After all, if solar power is to make up a larger %age of where we get our energy from, it's these countries that will be the source. I like the Buckminster-Fuller idea of a global grid where daylit countries supply power to those experiencing night. If the process would also provide clean fresh water as well eg. by involving Fuel cells, we would be in a win-win situation.
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"Biofuels were much touted as a partial solution to climate change a few years ago. It was only once people started working out the possible implications for biodiversity, food production, water extraction and so on, and working through the climate impacts of clearing forests to grow fuel crops, that previously enthusiastic governments thought about applying some brakes."
Of course, had there been a modicum of economic literacy about, it might have been realised that subsidising otherwise uneconomic activities was likely to have exactly this effect.
That's what subsidies do.
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I remain highly dubious that there will be a major step toward international governance even during the Obama term. I simply do not see a significant balance of major nations willing to cede sovereignty to an international government. Quite frankly the UN is weak for a reason.
There will certainly be a major growth in multilateral environmental treaties. There will not be a major move towards an international governance that can create and enforce environmental limits.
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@pandatank
I'm not an expert in electric generation and distribution efficiency, so please correct me if i am wrong, but doesn't ability of the electricity cables to transmit electricity diminish with distance? I think, but I am not sure, that for every 1000 miles the amount of electricity lost was around 10%, so trying to transport electricity, especially solar power, from one country to another is unlikely to be very efficient.
Bucky-balls so to speak ;)
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Richard
You said "The single biggest event of the meeting was the agreement to regulate global emissions of mercury, a heavy metal pollutant with toxicities that include damaging people's nervous systems."
What is your opinion on energy saving light bulbs and the potential for mercury leaching into the water table due to incorrect disposal of the bulbs?
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From the League of Nations to the United Nations - each following on the heels of a world war.
And now, a looming global environmental crisis, which will in all probability claim many of us as victims.
While acknowledging the limited teeth of the current United Nations, I remain hopeful.
For me, the International Panel on Climate Change, though a little ponderous, and slightly behind the curve of the most modern thinking on climate change, for me it is amazing that so many have agreed to so much!
I think this may be due to the growing involvement and influence of science in the world today, and specifically, on this United Nations panel.
Why?
Because like mathematics, science is a type of universal language, the lingua franca of a technological species who are just awakening to their, to our, power, and hopefully, our responsibilities.
It helps that necessity is here also. This may be the glue which ultimately brings us together.
Perhaps President Obama will be able to see a way out of the Middle East, and turn his attention, and that of the United States, to the root problems.
I hope the loss of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory see us replace it with
another, and soon. This is a test - a litmus paper. Where really does the current President stand on science?
It was John F. Kennedy's personal involvement with NASA, and his appointments to that organization, which electrified the world, and NASA, as regards the space race.
The mission statement of NASA used to be:
"to understand and protect our home planet."
That was summarily changed, apparently by Michael Griffin at NASA, under the former Bush administration, as NASA's budget for Earth science was severely cut. ("Censoring Science", by Mark Bowen, 2008)
I am easily convinced by action. I am waiting for that from the new president.
- From Calgary -
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Current NASA Mission Statement:
"To advance and communicate scientific knowledge and understanding of the earth, the solar system, and the universe."
"To advance human exploration, use, and development of space."
"To research, develop, verify, and transfer advanced aeronautics and space technologies."
Current NASA Vision:
"NASA is an investment in America's future. As explorers, pioneers, and innovators, we boldly expand frontiers in air and space to inspire and serve America and to benefit the quality of life on Earth."
Sorry to be a contrarian (again), but sometimes it's the right thing to show there is no real change
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Nasa's new mission statement is much farther from the original than one might think.
Why was it changed, if it is the same?
There is apparently some discussion as to whether it is even legal to change a government organization's mission statement without consultation of Congress, but I am not a legal beagle, and I will leave it at that.
"To understand and protect our home planet" was both simple and beautiful, and filled with underlying meaning. It was poetic, in the way of the Declaration of Independence.
It put Earth first, and it rang of the "hero", which is probably derived from the Indo-European 'ser', 'to watch over and protect', surely a noble calling.
The current mission statement is so businesslike, which is of course the intent.
How soon we seem to forget the businessmen of the modern world. The world financial system all but collapsed, our greed apparent to everyone on Earth it would seem, yet we 'stay the course' and bail out the 'champions' of free enterprise.
What a joke!
In this cynical and lost age words like hero are literally laughed at, except perhaps when we go the movies. But there was a time when this was not so, even if that time is only in our minds.
President Theodore Roosevelt:
"We stand equally against government by a plutocracy and government by a mob. There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a democrat like myself must admit this. But there is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with 'the money touch', but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawn brokers."
President Abraham Lincoln:
"It has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have laboured and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue."
When are we going to wake up and reclaim our heritage - stewards of the land - heros even - watching over and protecting our childrens' future?
- From Calgary - There's a big Chinook coming in - how many will be outside enjoying it, and how many inside watching something virtual on TV, or checking on their portfolios? -
PS to CuckooToo: MWP - I presume you mean the Midieval Warm Period?
Try "Winds of Change", by Eugene Linden, 2006.
If you're interssted in Milankovitch cycles, i.e., orbital forcing, with amplifying CO2 and greenhouse gas feedbacks, as opposed to our present CO2 forcing, with its own cascade of amplifying feedbacks, let me know - please.
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@manysummits
Yes, MWP means Medieval Warm Period - see CO2 science for details of their project, citing the work of over 650 scientists, to show the MWP did actually exist.
And, despite appearances, I am actually open to discussion, because I accept I may be wrong. I am still trying to find "Thin Ice" at my local library, but without success so far. I have read books on the pro-AGW side of the fence, but remain unconvinced of the CO2 argument.
Could I recommend "The Chilling Stars" by Calder, which gives one alternative view of global warming and highlights the work by Svensmark and, whilst I can't recall his name being mentioned, echos the theory put forward by Shaviv?
Could I also recommend visiting some sceptic websites on occassions for an alternative view - I don't mean the rapib anti sites, but some of the more considered sites such as climate audit and wattsupwiththat? I visit Real Climate on a regular basis to try to understand the pro-view, although I have to confess to getting annoyed when they censor my views, because they don't like what I say (afaik, i don't break the house rules, but if I do I think it would be courtesy to let me know what i did wrong)
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@manysummits
I checked the NASA mission statement and vision prior to the change in 2002. It's a pdf, but there is a link here under "NASA 2000 strategic plan":
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/codez/plans.html
and reads:
"To advance and communicate scientific
knowledge and understanding of the
Earth, the solar system, and the universe"
"To advance human exploration, use,
and development of space"
"To research, develop, verify, and
transfer advanced aeronautics and
space technologies"
and the Vision reads:
"NASA is an investment in America’s future .
As explorers, pioneers, and innovators, we
boldly expand frontiers in air and space to
i n s p i re and serve America and to benefit
the quality of life on Earth "
So it seems to have gone back to the previous version.
I really don't think the mission plan was changed for any sinister reason, it just reverted back to a previous version. It looks to me like the author is trying to make something out of nothing
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Yet more attempts to create a climate of fear.
Yet more attempts to increase oppression.
Yet more attempts to justify taxation.
Not a single viable alternative or positive intitiative.
I'd like to see a 'binding commitment' to funding 2nd generation bio-fuels and other viable alternatives to fossil fuels.
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CuckooToo, you ask:
"What is your opinion on energy saving light bulbs and the potential for mercury leaching into the water table due to incorrect disposal of the bulbs?"
I'd say it's not ideal that energy-saving bulbs are using mercury - ideally it would be phased out from every use, I think, but clearly that's going to take time. As with every other gadget, an old lightbulb can either be disposed of well or poorly and I think it's up to regulators to make sure it's done well. The most significant source of mercury (in the US at least) is coal burning.
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Man made Global Warming is, according to those obsessed with blaming mankind, a proven fact.
Except that they quote only computer predictions as proof. And hysterical outbursts from proven tellers of untruths. James Hansen/Al Gore/Michael Mann etc. That simply, is not good enough.
Stop all Man Made CO2 and only 3% is removed. And so the other 97% CO2 just sits there and does nothing?
CO2 is not, repeat not a poison.
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Richard,
Thank you for your response
I'm not sure, however, that it is entirely satisfactory to rely on legislation to police the disposal of energy saving light bulbs (look at how many idiots still use their mobiles whilst driving). My concern is over time, the chances are the mercury will leach into the water table. I realise the average bulb contains little mercury, but isn't this just yet another example of environmentalists not thinking through their policies?
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Why have we 'Slow Green Reform'?:
Governments are discredited. They are just in it if it turns in taxes and votes.
Individuals are discredited. They are usually con-men looking for Nobel Prizes.
True environmentalists are sincere but taken over by dangerous wacko’s.
Independent bodies are better but usually have an agenda.
Free markets level the field and allow us to compete evenly but do not protect the future.
Let's take as a first step to have a 'consensus' on our natural human behavior and then start to address the subject.
Or we could invoke Armageddon and maybe that will help us settle the matter.
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#13 globalclaptrap
"Stop all Man Made CO2 and only 3% is removed. And so the other 97% CO2 just sits there and does nothing?"
And apart from CO2, are you also referring to algae and cows farting?
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The only reason we have to cling to hope is that things can change so quickly. Really, most of the problems that we consider to be so critical would simply melt away in the face of a truly "united" effort by all countries. Unity will be the final outcome but how close we allow ourselves to get to brink with some of these issues is the scarey part.
www.scuble.com
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There should be more pressure and strict regulations to supermarkets and manufacturing industries that whatever they make, be it packaging, washing machines, computer, mobile phones, etc., the materials should be eco-friendly, recyclable, or biodegradable. The days of throw away society must be over. If it's bad for the environment then it should not be produced. Companies should be recycling their products and be responsible for the disposal and or recycling of.
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To scuble (post# 17)
I couldn't agree more! Well put.
It seems to me that a climate of fear is making itself felt as our population soars, our use of fossil fuels for energy and agriculture spirals ever upward, and we are hearing form various sources that this cannot continue, and that it cannot continue for very much longer.
This climate of fear is as yet not pervasive. When it is, will panic or a coming together of the nations and of the people be the result, or something in between?
In my seven years as a full-time mountain climber and climb leader, I had occasion to see much of human nature myself, and I queried professional guides as to what they had seen in their careers.
In short, a population increasingly fearful and unsure of themselves in the natural world, dependent and afraid.
This is the same population which will soon be confronting the stark realities of too large a world poulation, by far, and too little food and energy.
We are already bankrupting ourselves over access to oil, diminishing or even precluding our ability to react to this crisis.
It is helpful I think to realize that population control is well within our capabilities, given the imperative to act.
One child per family, for example, would instantaneously change all of the equations, and not only the one for population growth. It would change economics and the consumer society predicated on ever increasing growth, etc..., with unknown ramifications.
But these ramifications would presumably be very large.
I know that there have been past crises in the long tenure of human beings on Earth, both when we were hunters on the land, and when we had to civilize ourselves.
Always people have imagined their crises was new ground, and we are no exception.
But maybe we are at the point where another doubling of the population is simply not sustainable, even in the short term?
I have hope for a true and effective United Nations, and I would like to hear from you any more thoughts you have in this regard???
- From Calgary -
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Richard Black:
Can it work? --I hope it can work!!!
If it can, will the outcome be tinkering, or wholesale reform? I think it will be a lot of tinkering.....
If it is reform, will a new body include rules and sanctions, as does the World Trade Organization? I think it should have rules and sanctions......
How will it link environmental issues to human development? I hope it can be linked between environmental and human development....
~Dennis Junior~
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I seem to feel like writing a lot lately.
Since this is an 'enviromental' post by Richard Black, and since one of the most profound experiences of my own life was my seven years as a full-time mountaieer, and since this is the beginning of a new month, and spring is just around the corner, at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere - for all these reasons I would like to offer, as food for thought, the words of Reinhold Messner, aguably the most accomplished and inventive climber of the twentieth century, as regards - the environment:
From his book, "Antarctica", 1991, pg 217, on the way back to McMurdo from a foot traverse to the south pole:
"These weeks of living with unadulterated nature gave me again that self-confidence which earlier, before mankind and his technology had 'subjugated' the world, had fulfilled each living, feeling creature. It seemed to me as if I were restored to that time and that state when nature alone was 'God'. Our ecological problems stem from the rift which has occurred between man and nature. Where do the two meet still today, how and how often? Man was obliged to forget to conserve nature when he tried to perceive it rationally, instead of emotionally and instinctively. I have nothing against science, but must all myths be sacrificied to it?"
I happen to agree with these sentiments.
It has also occurred to me these last few weeks, my first experience 'blogging' on the BBC website, as I have printed off and examined original source material from jourals such as 'Nature', 'Science', and 'Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences' of the United States, on climate change, it has occurred to me yet again, that the problems we face are largely psychological, or perhaps personal, rather than technical.
Coming back into the normal work force again, after so much time doing exactly what I wanted to do, has frankly been like what I imagine the astronauts felt as they returned form their first moon missions - reentry into a profoundly different world psychologically.
I am now more or less up to speed again science wise, meaning climate science mostly I suppose.
"Living in the society of men, the best man becomes a sinner",
so an ancient Vedic text tells us.
Truly, it seems to me, we have lost touch, most of us, most of the time, with what I can only describe as the sacred.
This is an old and oft repeated insight, repeated by phiolosophers and mystics for as far back as there are records.
I pose this as a question:
Since we seem to be at a virtual standstill as regards truly addressing the pressing world issues - population growth, climate change, wars over oil and resources etc..., an almost mad consumerism and prediliction for watching rather than participating, maybe it's time to consider the problems in a different light?
Not as technical problems, with cost benefit ratios and all that implies, but instinctively, as Reinhold suggests.
I wonder if our instincts are not better at accounting than accountants, if our hearts are not more trustworthy in the end than our intellects?
It can be tried out by everyone as a sort of mind experiment. For example, should we go nuclear?
Answer with your instinct and heart first - you will know if you are using these because the answer will come immediately, without thinking.
Then answer logically - the 'normal' way.
Compare the two - just out of personal interest.
Consider also that we have been making decisions the 'normal' way for a long time now, and here we are.
By way of information, Reinhold Messner worked for years as a 'green' elected representative in Germany, after his climbing career.
- From Calgary -
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Follow up to post #21:
Another mountaineer and climate science/biographer author, Mark Bowen, ("Thin Ice" - 2005); "Censoring Science" - 2008), introduced his book "Thin Ice", about Lonnie Thompson's mountain ice-coring work, with the following quotation:
"I do believe that we ought to pay more attention to the opinion of philosophers, that 'nothing but nature can qualify a man for knowlege'."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (poet)
On this tack, I have another question for 'scuble' (post#17). I checked the website listed at the bottom of that post - evidently a concerned diver/tour operator/biologist with some three decades of first hand experience in the world's oceans, and as such, in tune with nature:
What have you seen of coral bleaching or ocean acidification effects, or simply - what have you seen that might interest us all?
- From Calgary, far from the sea -
PS to scuble: I was a founding year member of "The Cousteau Society", long time ago. I have often wondered if it would be a good idea to start up a mountain tour company with an environmental slant?
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To ManySummits Post #19:
The history of civilization is the history of man learning how to effectively organize himself into larger and larger groups. Families, clans, tribes, city states, kingdoms, nations......
There is only one level of organization left to achieve and the struggle is ultimately being played out in every forum. The economy, climate change, conservation, politics, the war on terrorism. Theses are all places where we struggle to come to grips with the fact that all problems are global problems and any true solutions will come from our abilities to re-organize ourselves into a next level....world government.
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To Manysummits post#22:
I dive primarily on the westcoast of Canada where there is not an abundance of coral. We have some species of Gorgonian Coral which resides at the threshold where scuba divers can get down to see it. I have not read any reports on how acidification is affecting this coral. On a recent trip to Cuba, I did see first hand the very sad sight of whitened coral heads where very recently there was healthy coral.
In my own backyard, we have been very lucky to host a species of shark called the 6-gill shark. It commonly reaches 5-8 m in length and has been fairly accessible to divers. However, over the past two years they have seemingly disappeared. Sites where once there would be a guaranteed sighting, there was only two sightings for the whole year. It is very disturbing.
By the way, we owe it all to Cousteau. He was perhaps the first bonafide environmentalist. Without being radical or militant, he shone a very powerful light on important issues and truly inspired generations.
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@scuble and manysummits
please add David Bellamy, David Attenborough, the whole of the Anglia TV series "Survival" and most of the BBC's excellent contribution to wildlife TV to the name Cousteau (a brilliant man of course)
i was brought up on the above and still pine for the days when such giants return to our screens - I know Attenborough and the BBC are still making some excellent wildlife programmes, albeit tinged with the AGW warning put in just to spoil our enjoyment.
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To CuckooToo:
I totally agree with all in your post. Planet Earth is probably the most brilliant TV ever made. BBC is head and shoulders above (including Mr. Black's writing).
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Not sure i would agree with your last remark
;)
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