COP15: Deal or no deal?
UPDATE 1159 CET: Now a group of countries (Bolivia, Saudi Arabia) is arguing that the deal reached last night is not a proper agreement under the UN climate convention, but lies outside.
The summit didn't "adopt" it, but "took note" of it - because not all countries wanted it.
What sort of agreement would that make it?
Fascinating.
UPDATE: 1035 CET: I'd run through in my head several ways this morning's final session might turn out, but I didn't see this one coming.
A group of developing countries is, I think, trying to make some elements of the deal made by Wen Jiabao, Barack Obama and so on last night legally binding.
During a long, long adjournment, they've had quite a bit of time to look at this and there are lots of clever lawyers in the hall accustomed to using whatever opportunities they have.
It's a nightmare to follow - lots of document-speak, which doesn't translate into English very easily after 30 hours without sleep - but we'll make sense of it somehow.
UPDATE: 0835 CET:The session's been adjourned now for about 45 minutes while delegates try to find a way through this impasse.
I've been passing a little time reading a highly entertaining account by AFP's Stephen Collinson of "how the deal was done" - well worth a look.
UPDATE - 0722 CET: Remarkable how the great swathe of developing countries is divided by the "deal" announced last night by President Obama.
We have some small island states in favour, and others against. None of them likes a deal that they feel may consign them to a future under the waves; but some, perhaps most, are choosing to accept it, either because they know there's nothing else on offer, or because wider political considerations have swayed their hand.
The African Union appears to be onside - presumably steered by Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi's endorsement on Wednesday of a proposal to raise $100bn per year by 2020 for poorer countries - the sum, not co-incidentally, that Hillary Clinton said the US would work towards raising.
But a group of Latin American and Caribbean countries appears adamant in its view that the deal was done illegitimately; and for that reason, and because it will not cut emissions enough to meet the IPCC's criteria for keeping the global temperature rise within 2C, they feel it cannot be endorsed.
The wider conference "never gave a mandate to a small group of 25 countries to draw up such a document", the Venezuelan delegate has just said.
And when they resolve this impasse, there's a mass of other formal stuff to conclude.
Meanwhile, tired negotiators and environment ministers - most now deserted in the cold Copenhagen dawn by their prime ministers and presidents - are talking of the need to speed things up to catch flights home.
UPDATE - 0410 CET: Things getting lively in the main meeting now, after the "deal" was introduced for consideration by countries not involved in its making.
Tuvalu said it couldn't accept the deal, because it amounted to "30 pieces of silver to sell our country".
Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua lined up in support, with the last-named introducing two documents for consideration. They would effectively restart negoations on issues such as futher emission cuts from developed nations that the "deal" effectively brings to an end.
Watch this space... we could be in for a bumpy ride...
UPDATE - 0305 CET: The EU has decided to support the pact.
Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso were clearly less than delighted with it at their news conference.
Asked where EU leadership had been, Mr Barroso replied:
"We have been leading, but we were not leading when it came to lowering the ambition."
0043 CET Saturday: Now, we are totally - totally - into uncharted territory.
A US president has reached a climate change agreement with leaders of just four countries - although a few more clearly had an inkling of what was going on.
The White House announced the deal - this is supposed to be a UN convention, remember - and President Obama has gone live on US television telling viewers what it contains before many delegations in the UN conference even had a chance to look at the text.
It's not clear how those outside the little cabal of nations are going to play this.
The African Union is officially in favour so far, but they're having a closed door meeting that I understand is lively, with Senegal among countries opposing.
I've been told that some of the small island developing states have been "told" to sign up, but others are fuming and determined to oppose - especially as their key demand, inclusion of at least the indication that the world could eventually look at 1.5C as a target for temperature rise, was excised at the last minute.
Ask who the "villain" is, and - as I mentioned in my previous post - "China, China, China" is the refrain.
But there is considerable anger towards the US, too, as I indicated before.
The fact that the EU hasn't endorsed this "deal" yet it absolutely significant, as European leaders have until now been prepared to work with the US, though wishing it were in a position to pledge more.
Procedurally, there's no precedent. Asked how things stood, one observer replied with a six-letter word unprintable on a BBC webpage - it begins with an f.
It appears the document - which is written in the guise of a UN text - goes back to the plenary session, which will convene we don't know when.
If it's savaged there, does that make it a non-agreement? Does it become a UN non-agreement but become an agreement between a select few countries outside?
Frankly, your guess is as good as mine. Any international law experts out there who can advise?
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~44~RS~)
Comments
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Crab people, crab people...
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rofl so according to its original stated intentions the entire conference is a total failure?
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66/1 on the crab folks mr bowman.
any bets?
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Generally, UN Conventions are adopted by the General Assembly - if lots of states opposed it, this deal wouldn't become a UN Convention.
In any case, all international treaties are only agreed between the states that sign up. There are UN conventions on lots of things, but only the states that have ratified them are bound by them. But unless they have strong economic or security imperatives, states tend to ignore them anyway. The US ratified the Convention against Torture, for example...
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Once again the community organizer failed to organize, this time the community of nations. Had we known he was so poor at it we might not have elected him.
The President and the press can try to put any kind of spin on it they like but the fact is that there was no deal. The US put forth its non binding target for itself (without a hint of a coherent plan as to how it will achieve it.) That 17% reduction is modest compared to 25% some demanded, small compared to 35% others demanded and some wanted even more. America and China agree on one thing however which is clear and that is that their economies are more important to their governments than promising to reduce CO2 emissions on the possibility that the survival of civilization as we know it might depend on it. Humanity has adapted to changes in the past, there will be change in the future and somehow some of us are likely to survive them...maybe.
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tbh mr bowman:
you could have just ignored me like you ignored my response to your post where you accused me of being prof watson (or did you think the nitwit was mr morano?) however you're lurking till you found something you reckoned you could use to discredit me and then going on about it a little, that kind of invalidates your case :P
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Tears: Word up! meant in this case 'I'm outa here'.
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One question before I retire: How many of you accept the theory of continental drift/plate tectonics? Have you seen the earth move recently?
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I am not surprised by the no official reaction from many states yet. I am sure the desire to use the f word is not reserved to that one specific observer.
I would rather walk away with no agreement and negotiate again in the near future for a real agreement then to deal with such an "agreement." Not that I am too surprised by the outcome of the summit, but in the end was a failure of diplomacy. If I was able to choose, I wish my tax dollars not to be spent on this expensive trip by Hillary, Obama, and other US negotiators; such an "agreement" was a waste of time and tax money.
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@7
kk ty.
@8
rofl. geology=/= post normal science. geology =traditional science.
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I think this is a pathetic fudge, to pretend to the world a deal has been done when we all know nothong has really been acheived that will help anyone
I think investment in new 'cross party' research prior to the next meeeting would be a great step forwards
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Well, what did we expect when we’re a bar full of alcoholics, and the politician publicans are expected to call time while standing for re-election? We must start tackling our collective addiction to consumerism before the politics can work.
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In some sense, I really do not feel the organizer was at complete fault at the failure -- it was everyone fault that no one among the third parties are playing hardball enough against the major parties. Frankly, it was a major strategic mistake that some of the developing states align themselves too close to China and India. The opposite is true when EU and other developed state trying to play nice with Mr Obama. Isn't a "deal" between US, China, India, and SA that will not be signed the hundred something other country be as strong as bargaining chip?
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Seriously, who does the typing at the BBC, because almost daily, I'm casually reading, and have to stop myself at the sight of hilarious spelling and grammar mistakes.
It often makes Sports articles read completely differently, and needless to say, when delivering the news to people, context needs to be preserved.
/
"A US president has reached an climate change agreement with leaders of just four countries - although a few more clearly had a inkling of what was going on."
How about trying:
"The US President has reached A climate change agreement with the leaders of just four countries - although a few more clearly had AN inkling of what was going on."
Afterall, that's what the rest of us learned in English class when we were 10 years old.
I know it's a petty thing to mention, but nearly daily, I find horrific grammar and spelling mistakes in the Sport and News sections.
If I could take a guess i'd say your typist isn't fully English...
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@infinity (#120 from previous thread and OOPS actually posted it there when I meant to move it)
"We know there is a divergence post 1960. Some proxies follow temperature, others don't and decline."
Right, because the proxies are so coherent the rest of the time...
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/c/c1/2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
During the calibration period the proxies suddenly come together and this takes up about 10 pixels or...about 2% of the graph. Is there ANY line you could draw through that spaghetti graph that wouldn't show a substantial divergence problem everywhere except the early 1900's?
Now...
if you cheat and remove the medieval warm period (which they did at one point) you're being deceptive
If you "hid the decline" when the proxies show their true colors (which they did and you're actually DEFENDING THEM!!!!) you're being deceptive.
If you do both and then average the proxies...you get a lie...the hockey-stick graph
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/wp-images/gore_hockeystick_fig2.JPG
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The new proposal provided by Nicaragua to extend the work until COP 16 in Mexico is another step in a very chaotic process. As long as Saudi Arabia not stop to block decent rules for the process we will never get anywhere.
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It was a legally investigated intervention from Nicaragua that would effectively throw out the accord and keep the CMP open until the process was completed or June 2010.
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LOL, I get concerned they might actually do something crazy but then I forget...this IS the UN. Very little ever gets done. I'm really hoping a huge portion of the environmentalists shear off into a group that focuses once again on fixing specific problems instead of trying to turn the world into a communist government with the sole job of trying to stop mankind from accomplishing...pretty much anything.
The continued flatlining (or dropping) temperatures certainly won't help the anti-carbon cause. It will be amusing to see how the Met office's projections for next year pan out. Its extremely likely that the long running (but mild) El Nino will be running out and flipping to a La Nina. The AGW movement can't take another 2008 La Nina (which was actually considered a moderate La Nina, BTW). If the temperature dropped like it did for the 2008 La Nina...the temperature anomalies by the major outlets would ALL show negative anomalies. If the drop was identical you'd have to go back to the early 90s to find an anomaly as low. We just aren't anywhere near as warm as some seem to think.
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"USBASIC" pretty accurately describes this graceless US action which smells an awful lot like a last-ditch attempt by a few dirty polluters to sabotage the efforts of millions, that have unfolded over many years at considerable expense.
I do agree with PM Gordon Brown's assessment: still, this naive & ultimately desperate "cabal" -- as you correctly term it, Mr Black -- is going to catch quite a lot of heat from many, many, many of us.
On the one hand, the reason I agree with Mr Brown is that this is an American President who, unlike Bill Clinton or either of the Bushes, actually admitted there is a problem and a need for action.
On the other hand, the whole approach emerges as a shameful one, in the end.
On the brink of acting courageously (or conceivably faking it), five coal bullies chose cowardice instead. They banded together to shield themselves. Instead of offering everyone else the courtesy of a common process & a willingness to hear others, they effectively said -- after decades of choking us with their fumes -- "We're done here; eat our exhaust."
NOT COOL: unacceptable in the world of diplomacy!
Absolutely, the EU, Japan, Russia, South America, Australia, the other African & Asian nations will call them on it.
It will get interesting, indeed, in the months to come.
Expect all kinds of developments. None of the big players frozen out are fools, or weak.
Certainly, we have achieved a Point of Departure, and a great many facts have been exposed, to most suggestive effect: and I hazard to say, precisely because of this ugly manoeuver by "USBASIC" (with it looks like the US in the lead position), the gauntlet they have thrown down to the rest of us is going to bring on a huge dose of comeuppance.
It is one thing to disagree with someone: it is another thing altogether to come to their party, make suitably friendly sounds, meanwhile quickly turn a half-dozen of their most important guests against the hosts -- and then skedaddle without even facing the music.
Someone said: "Obama killed Copenhagen." That may be an accurate assessment. But, if so, this rash choice will come back to haunt this White House.
Not cool at all. Consistent with past American actions, though, and in that sense, reinforcing the reality of who the problem nations really are.
Was Chávez right, in the end?
America: "land of opportunity" -- and Opportunists.
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As an attorney, sociologist, criminologist and author of "Gaia & the Fate of Midas: Wrenching Planet Earth" - I believe that Midas-thinkers in the guise of the cartel of the major greenhouse gas emitters have quite manipulatively and illegally trounced the small nations and their unions, which most surely will face both environmental entropy and possible disclimax over the coming 20 years.
It is absolutely shameful that this much-heralded international meeting has been torn to bits by the private agreement among big powers bent on their own schedules for production and the continued accumulation of wealth--at the direct expense of at least 3.8 billion people. Call it what you will, but the new imperialism promises to be the ruin of our planet and species diversity.
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lol lol lol lol lol lol lol ROFL Sea levels rise as man bear pig weeps.
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Europeans seem genuinely surprised at the outcome. I've been saying for years that they were wasting their time bashing America when they should have been talking to China. America will not make what is in effect a unilateral concession to anyone especially China. In the complex relation the US has with China such concessions would put the US at an unreasonable disadvantage. And for what? If China won't reduce its CO2 output, any sacrifice the US makes would be futile anyway. At first the environmentalists tried to tell us that the sacrifice would be minimal. Our cars would be a little smaller. We'd drive a little less. Use a little less light, a little less heat, a little less air conditioning. There would be all these marvelous opportunities to make money from new technologies in this. Rubbish. This is an economic disaster that would cost America untold trillions. If you think there was a battle in Congress over health care, you ain't seen nothin' yet. A lot of Obama's fellow Democrats will abandon him on this one when the price tag for it starts getting publicized. I think cap and trade is a dead issue already. They won't be buying votes on this one with pork either, there's just too much at stake. In fact I don't see Obama's 17% plan going anywhere. Not unless they have a very well thought out program they've kept secretly hidden, a program that isn't going to hurt a lot of Americans. I don't think there is such a thing.
All in all, I am neither surpised or displeased with the way it all worked out. The e-mail revelations that led to climate-gate and the chaos in the way it was all set up was just the unexpected icing on the cake.
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Hurray. I wake up to find the elite consumers of wealth have finished squabbling and can't decide how to spend the money produced by thwe world's wealth producers.
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Did they decide how much to turn the dial on the global climate controller? What jokers our elite leaders are.
We said all along Copenhagen would be a great waste of our money. When do we cough up for the next junket?
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So they're going to pay people not to chop down trees. I have several hundred. Where do I apply and who is paying? I reckon I can plant lots more trees that I won't chop down. This sounds like a super retirement scheme!
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Despite all the hype, I never expected much from this (I never expect much from any) summit. If anything real was going to happen then the result would have been well known, and well trailed, before the event.
So I am surprised to be surprised! Not by the lack of meaningful outcome: but by the inability either to cobble together a face saving formula or to spin the result in such a way that they can pretend to have achieved something.
It is pointless to get drawn into predicting the course, or identifying the causes, of climate change. On this showing, no-one is going to change their ways - and so our grandchildren will be able to discover the answers empirically.
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It has finally become obvious that the kind of CO2 reductions necessary to contain a global warming to 2°C are simply impossible to implement.
The reduction in standard of living in developed countries, and the drastically reduced rate of growth in developing countries, would ensure that leaders who tried to implement the necessary measures would not for long remain leaders.
China has committed to a 40% - 45% reduction in "carbon intensity" by 2020. This means that if China, already the world's largest emitter, maintains its projected rate of economic growth the amount of CO2 emitted by the country will increase by around 90%. India has suggested an emissions target that will approximately triple its emissions by that date.
No matter what the rest of the world does it is a cast iron certainty that the amount of CO 2 emitted globally in 2020 will be dramatically greater than that emitted today
Instead of pouring vast sums of money money into doomed attempts to limit greenhouse gas emissions it would be far better to fund intensive research into methods of energy generation which are cheaper than burning fossil fuels. The only way to stop people burning fossil fuels is to find a cheaper way of generating energy.
It's possible that this may prove unachievable - however reducing CO2 emissions to any significant extent is certainly unachievable.
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Utter waste of money but then isn't that what politicians do most of the time? Waste our money.
The President of the USA, speaking at a conference to apparently save the world from global warming catastrophe has to leave in a hurry because of blizzards approaching the White House!
Oooops! Mustn't laugh too much! All that CO2 being exhaled!
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A major setback for Human Security and a proof that Realpolitik will always prevail!
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We have respected leaders in this summit who believes not only we pledge but deliverance of our commitment had to be strictly monitored as per stragetic evolution of response factors that are amounting towards rising. I would say climatic change can only be an hazard for mother nature if we are staying silent and double crossed in every word that has to be taken within respectful point of view. This would be accountable since most of the ground water levels have seen toxic levels unfit for intake by our new generation as per the words of UN secretary general. The carbon cut is worth noting but we can step down our lintered developmental activities across. It would be righteous to say we bridge every island borders with footprints that would rejudge their potential survival and when the $100 billion is used in this manner till the date every home would be secure with organic ecosystem energy source we could draft the best point of view by 2020 AD. It is very essential we need to arrive an unbiased agreement by parties involved within the natural barrier. This step would not only be pledged but the reserve join groups should see that we act unbaised in this term of endure. I have lend my little knowledge sphere in this simple title of saving sustaining the natural ecosystem in a friendly manner with only the leaders could say we have a deal or no deal. :)
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A few random comments.
I have to say I'm genuinely and pleasantly surprised that most people don't seem to "swallow" the official line that the Good and the Great Big Guns at the conference are the Saviours of the Planet.
It seems to me that the general public will now go on to ask some pretty searching questions about the way participants wallowed in glitz at a time when the economy is in such trouble. The public is already furious with bankers' bonuses and MPs expense fiddles. Even though in real terms these extravagances don't make much of a dent in the nation's finances, they generate a powerful sense of distaste. It is at least unbecoming to arrange a large slice for oneself out of the general puiblic's money that was given to prevent disaster.
Another thing: the role of journalism in the whole affair looks all wrong. The principal -- I would say almost "sacred" -- duty of a journalist is to prevent the public getting duped by telling things as they are, by giving both sides to the story, by taking the trouble to understand technical issues well enough to explain them in plain English, above all by asking difficult questions and rejecting with extreme prejudice any efforts to cover things up or keep the public in the dark.
It seems to me that there has been a widespread failure on all of the above by almost all mainstream journalists. This must change.
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I find it amazing that COP15 went ahead when i read this sort of thing in the emails
November 25, 1997: email 0880476729
Tom Wigley roundly criticises the eleven scientists seeking endorsement of their Statement on Global Warming. Some excerpts:
"Not only do I disagree with the content of this letter, but I also believe that you have severely distorted the IPCC 'view'..."
"Your approach of trying to gain scientific credibility for your personal views by asking people to endorse your letter is reprehensible. No scientist who wishes to maintain respect in the community should ever endorse any statement unless they have examined the issue fully themselves. You are asking people to prostitute themselves by doing just this!"
"When scientists color the science with their own PERSONAL views or make categorical statements without presenting the evidence for such statements, they have a clear responsibility to state that that is what they are doing. You have failed to do so. Indeed, what you are doing is, in my view, a form of dishonesty more subtle but no less egregious than the statements made by the greenhouse skeptics, Michaels, Singer et al. I find this extremely disturbing."
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Again I have to ask how the COP15 summit could have gone ahead when you read selected emails from The Team and see how they appear to have manipulated things
Warning for the Global Warm Mongers
The folowing link contains details of the leaked / hacked emails that you really will not like. it's also from the SPPI, so i know you will dismiss it out of hand anyway), but try to read please.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/climategate_analysis.html
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Its telling that in the short time Mr Obama was at COP15 he spent more time in discussions with the Russians regards Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and not much time on climate issues.
I wonder if the sheeple are slowly realising the new messiah is in reality just a human being.
Merry Winterville
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COP15 want to control CO2 emissions despite this email.
September 22, 2000: email 0969618170
Malcolm Hughes to Tom Crowley:
"I tried to imply in my e-mail, but will now say it directly, that although a direct carbon dioxide effect is still the best candidate to explain this effect, it is far from proven." Why should this be so dangerous to say explicitly that it must be implied?
What's changed since 2000 to justify CO2 control?
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Thank you for the link to Stephen Collinson's scintillating write-up.
Once again, American politicians embarrass me. The attitude of entitlement, "this is my planet & the rest of you don't count" is profoundly disturbing. The high-handedness & disdain for protocol is appalling.
We have no choice but to take control of the process to clean up the environment.
Mango, you had better have wrists of steel, because this is only the beginning of the fight and each time you keep repeating the same warmed-over phrases, you are only ensuring we keep pressing ahead until sanity prevails over contempt for reason.
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Re #27 David G "It has finally become obvious that the kind of CO2 reductions necessary to contain a global warming to 2°C are simply impossible to implement.
The reduction in standard of living in developed countries, and the drastically reduced rate of growth in developing countries..."
There is nothing impossible about solar panels and wind turbines. So what if they cost more, we will save with reduced health-care and insurance costs.
There is nothing impossible about electric trains, which actually improve living standards and stimulate economic growth.
We all need to ask for efficient transport investments and clear-cut logging bans. (selective logging produces more in the long run)
It seems our leaders are still counting beans, and do not know what to do.
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@Maria Ashott
Maria, when I read emails like this, I realise the fight is all but over for The Team:
June 4, 2003: email 1054756929
Ed Cook writes to Keith Briffa:
"I got a paper to review (submitted to the Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Sciences), written by a Korean guy and someone from Berkeley, that claims that the method of reconstruction that we use in dendroclimatology (reverse regression) is wrong, biased, lousy, horrible, etc. They use your Tornetrask recon[struction] as the main whipping boy. ... If published as is, this paper could really do some damage. It is also an ugly paper to review because it is rather mathematical, with a lot of [filter theory] stuff in it. It won't be easy to dismiss out of hand as the math appears to be correct theoretically,
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Al Gore #34.
"I wonder if the sheeple are slowly realising the new messiah is in reality just a human being."
Pres. Obama reminds me a lot of Tony Bliar: a charismatic, slick, self-serving lawyer.
I think his (in-)actions will be as damaging to the people and democracy.
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Richard:
I missed you on the news this morning (it was -8C in Devon and I was out defrosting), but my wife said you sounded depressed. Well I'm sure your BBC salary will help you get over the depression. Meanwhile there are a lot of very happy people who have received a good Christmas present from our elite leaders.
Bring on a bit of warming I say. I'm getting through logs at a rapid rate and it's not even the solstice yet.
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No. 38, Mango: All that shows is how new you are to this process.
We have been in this effort since the 1980s. Some of us since before.
No amount of concocted spin from people who seem to live for any opportunity to attach the suffix "-gate" to any noun they can think of (thereby fatally revealing their DC-centricity) will alter in any way the reality that we have the integrity of our health to defend from the corporate interests who are essentially merchants peddling death & disease via waste & backwardness; that some Americans have never wavered before the opportunity to engage in 'dirty tricks' to safeguard their money-making schemes; that unintelligence always disintegrates before the onslaught of resolute high intelligence -- and that the biosphere we depend on is not Obama's, Singh's, Lula's, Zuma's or Wen's to toy with for purposes of saving face, redefining their obligations to the people who pay their wages, making a mockery of the UN and of many millions of experts & dedicated defenders (myself included), or cutting procedural corners out of some high-handed sense of "entitlement" to lay down the law to the rest of us.
What happened in Copenhagen through either foolish omission or outright sabotage by the White House (and I am disinclined to give them the benefit of the doubt as to intent, because the whole history of US commerce has been one of perpetuating frauds and protecting them with the phrase 'laissez fair capitalism') is an utterly cynical attempt to undermine a laudable concern, on the part of perhaps 90% of humankind, over the consequences of our recklessness -- a laudable effort, against very difficult disruptions from obstreperous elements in the Denial Detachment, to arrive at a historic turning away from irresponsibility, and towards credible, forthright, honourable collaboration as One Family that understands fundamental principles of coexistence within the biological order imposed by our universe.
It was, indeed, an attempt to Preserve "business as usual" instead of to improve upon it in a manner befitting the 21st century, our large population, and the demands of a complex reality in which not only the future, but indeed the present, have been compromised.
This disgraceful act will bring upon its authors the opprobrium of their own people, not to mention those of us everywhere on earth who are not satisfied to be told: "America leads & you just take what we see fit to give you, from the lofty heights of our own exceptionalism."
All kinds of US initiatives, including those for Afghanistan & Iran & the ME, are going to be affected.
The intensity of resentment will match everything recently felt & articulated over the US-led global financial vaporisation of sovereign assets, as well as the nest eggs of several hundred million (or more) families.
We have no other air. There is no license on earth that can allow a Chinese government or an Indian government or Barack Obama's handlers to simply take this precious resource and determine it belongs to them, and is theirs to befoul with impunity, with zero accountability.
Life just doesn't work that way, as the cynics are about to learn. There will be hell to pay for dismissing the supremacy of Logic.
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manysummits,
I enjoyed the film.
This is the time of our British christmas season. Everyone is rushing around the shops buying presents for their loved ones and last minute cards are being sent. Copenhagen counts at about zero on most people's minds.
The best bit about christmas is the preparation and carrying out of activities with family, friends and community. I have been tasting foods and drinks from different cultures and enjoying a Canadian version of eggy bread with maple syrup.
One thing delegates will have taken away with them from the Copenhagen summit is the first hand experience of working and engaging with people from so many different cultures. Our cultural diversity is precious, our customs are different but interesting and our combined cultural wealth is priceless. Let everyone work with what we, as collective humanity have got going for us and stop carping.
PS, If there are any aliens on this blog, crab people etc have you got any good food or drink recipes?
forever gullible'
sensible grannie x
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@Maria Ashott #41
So your saying it's ok to rubbish perfectly legitimate, peer reviewed work in the service of The Cause?
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The Doogooder Doomsayers are losing on all fronts and this is because the whole climate change argument is a pack of cards built on a quicksand of lies.
The Copenhagen deal is no deal. For a small sum any lawyer will tell you you cant have a contract where you agree to agree.
But lets not be too hard on all the little darlings I am sure their £40 a night bed and breakfasts were more than adequate.
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well that's just super, so the 30 pieces of silver is fairly accurate.
if you take the GDP of the EU, USA, Japan and China (throw in a few more what the hey)
and divide up the 100 billion between them it's like 0,00024% of their GDP
gosh that must smart on the old hip pocket
What an absolute failure of a conference. Just shows that none of them were ever serious about doing anything. It will be up to the man on the street to actually do anything.
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#39 jr4412 wrote:
"Pres. Obama reminds me a lot of Tony Bliar: a charismatic, slick, self-serving lawyer.
"I think his (in-)actions will be as damaging to the people and democracy."
The ghost of Tony Blair still haunts Whitehall as well. I suspect that Gordon Brown has made climate change "his thing" (and his cabinet's thing) in much the same way as Tony Blair made the "peace process" in Northern Ireland his thing. I'm not saying it's a cynical political gesture by Brown, as he seems relentlessly earnest, just that he was always tortured by Blair's charisma, and the climate thing sort of enables him to walk in something like the great man's shoes, sort of.
I suspect Gordon Brown will be incapable of seeing what the public increasingly sees: that it has all been a silly panic spread around by pseudoscientists. That will be his downfall (and the downfall of the Milibands and the rest of them). I don't think it will be quite as disastrous an election defeat as it might be, though, because Cameron is a deer in the headlamps at the moment.
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@Maria Ashott
You come across as very familiar with these types, (Copenhagen), of events Maria, and sound as is you are familiar, (in fact possibly involved), with the agenda set pre 1980's "We have been in this effort since the 1980s. Some of us since before".
Are you implying that the entire Rio/Koyoto/Copenhagen events are less to do with Global Warming/Climate Change and more to do with an agenda set around the 1980's and that Global Warming/Climate Change is only the public face of that agenda?
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What we got was 'progress' (several times in one sentence) and 'momentum'.
First from Pres. O and then echoed by PM B
At least the time for talk has passed. Apparently.
Money is on the table. As to reducing those pesky GHGs...
I await his next helpful line in the sand 'no, now this is it' deadline announcement to help focus minds and blow yet more credibility. This from twitter suggests he is coping well:
@DowningStreetPM: 2400 - this is hard work and I haven't got all I wanted. But it is a vital first step towards a greener future
Wonder where his head is at? Possible hint…
Fight to control Copenhagen climate change fund
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8419048.stm
Possibly it needs a world-saving financial genius to run?
So perhaps the fact that nothing is legally binding yet is no bad thing:)
As some were evidently unsure all being discussed was as settled as top scientists like Pres. Obama and PM brown say it was… er… is.
Speaking of whom, on the BBC just saw David King say that Gordon was neither right nor wrong to be pleased at the outcome. Uh-huh.
He does have a different take to most. One too often given credence in certain quarters. Wonder why?
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Mango, the "rubbishing" you refer to is about the size & significance of all the bird droppings that have landed on the ginormous "iceberg" that just recently broke off from the Antarctic, and floated towards New Zealand.
Precisely my point: you want to focus on utterly trivial & in fact spurious random events, instead of the big picture. And you use these trivial, spurious bits of scientific lint to attempt to argue against the sunrise.
Your lint does not alter the force daylight. It does not somehow reconstitute the atmosphere we breathe.
It just doesn't. Its ultimately a meaningless distraction, and a futile exercise.
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OK where is the court situated in the world that could validate let alone enforce a legally binding agreement on climate change? Let me tell you something THERE ISN'T ONE. So what is the point of trying to make the agreement legally binding. Any country that invalidates the agreement would be subject to the usual rounds of sanctions, threats and potentially invasion. I don't agree with the bullying scenario but that's the way of the world. .... or rather the western world.
We need to get agreement in principle and effectively hope it is followed by all interested parties.
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Maria Ashott
I can see what the "big picture" is Maria
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I'm sorry, perhaps I missed something. But when Obama flew in yesterday - at the very end of the conference - to make his grand speech about action rather than words, and then promptly flew back home again, what exactly was it that was more pressing on his agenda than assuring a meaningful COP15 agreement?
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How much money (from the taxpayers) was wasted on this farce again?
out of interest mr black, how much did the BBC budget allow for your good self to maintain yourself over there? hope you had a good time :)
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Richard:
you seem to like the old cut'n'paste approach to journalism, here's some help for you:
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
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COP 15: the biggest, most significant, 'tragedy of the commons' of all time.
I believe 18th December 2009 will go down in history as a watershed day for life on Earth; of equal if not greater significance for the planet as the death of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
There's a high probability we're screwed, folks. And the sad thing is the majority of the population don't have the imagination -- or simply refuse -- to see it.
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I have been following the proceedings in Copenhagen and must reiterate my profound respect for the delegates and for the integrity of their process.
Many of them have not slept in some 50 hours, and some have only slept a few hours in the past 72.
Their efforts in defence of humanity's survival & health are noble & laudable.
It really is shameful how their work has been undermined by some leaders.
The work continues & the sought-after result will ultimately be theirs.
Those who dismiss the significance of their engagement, discipline & professionalism only expose their own lack of credibility to the rest of us.
The "rich" often imagine that their wealth is a measure of their intelligence or superiority. If you listened to some of these delegates from the "poorer" or "less powerful" states, you would see instead how many superbly intelligent people of integrity are indeed active on earth today -- and why it is so important to preserve Civilisation, as a consequence.
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@JRWoodman #55
Perhaps the majority of the population see through it
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'I believe 18th December 2009 will go down in history as a watershed day for life on Earth'
yup. a good day for freedom from eco-fascists who think acceptible political discourse involves giving children nightmares. 3 more years and the end of kyoto will collapse the enron style carbon derivative markets too!
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The majority of the population don't understand it
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Suddenly we have found that, despite all the impressive rhetoric, the USA is not our friend. But there has already been lots of comment here about Obama. Media has concentrated on him and the US position. What about China? Just as important. Russia? What part have they been playing? Just because they are not speaking in English, doesn't mean what they are saying isn't important. Couldn't the media help us a bit more here?
There is a fundamental difference in approach between the EU and UN-type processes, trying to establish consensus by and large, and what has now happened - a few big players trying to impose a deal on everyone else. But if we are serious about the urgency of the issue, we have to admit that the UN-type process has failed - it takes too long. A two week conference, set up two years in advance, the 15th in a series, and we all knew that it was only the last day, the last few hours, that was going to matter. And then those few hours were hijacked by the gang of five.
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the majority of the people understand more than you give them credit for
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wishful thinking
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Mango, You are so much not of the "majority" that your attempts to attach the term to your own views is genuinely cringe-worthy.
In Copenhagen, with an elegant turn of phrase, the American delegate just asserted that since five "leaders" agreed to something, the remaining Six Point Eight Billion humans have been outranked, and should basically shut up.
America, "democracy" spreader. Thomas Jefferson must be spinning in his grave -- if HE was ever sincere, which I am also beginning to doubt.
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The Copenhagen Conference is passing the torch to COP16 in Mexico. The resolve to achieve a true outcome is palpable. We will all be there.
There is enough time to absorb the lessons of COP15 & adopt corrective measures. Also, there will be a midterm election in the US, and by that time the environmental activists in the US, who will have a vital role to play in delivering pro-earth legislators to Congress & other offices, will also have a much more forceful response ready in support of actual mitigation of climate change: with teeth.
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Looking around I found this from Maurice Strong:
“This interlocking…is the new reality of the century, with profound implications for the shape of our institutions of governance, national and international. By the year 2012, these changes must be fully integrated into our economic and political life.”
In an essay by Strong entitled Stockholm to Rio: A Journey Down a Generation, he says:
“Strengthening the role the United Nations can play…will require serious examination of the need to extend into the international arena the rule of law and the principle of taxation to finance agreed actions which provide the basis for governance at the national level. But this will not come about easily. Resistance to such changes is deeply entrenched. They will come about not through the embrace of full blown world government, but as a careful and pragmatic response to compelling imperatives and the inadequacies of alternatives.”“The concept of national sovereignty has been an immutable, indeed sacred, principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation. What is needed is recognition of the reality that in so many fields, and this is particularly true of environmental issues, it is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation-states, however powerful. The global community must be assured of environmental security.”
So, this is still the game that is being played?
Some dubious character with some high powered friends has set the course that our leaders are insisting that we follow?
If a new finance mechanism has been agreed at Copenhagen then I feel that our leaders are doing what they are adept at...pretending to fail!
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Richard -- excellent reporting as always. As for grammatical errors, it's amazing anyone could make sense of and distill 30 hours of UN speak at all.
Your comment that the discussions got interesting round about 4 AM was a slight understatement -- when was the last time blood was shed at a UN meeting (self-inflicted as it may have been)!
It remains to be seen whether the "deal" will be worth the paper it was written on -- the devil is in the details, and in this case there are precious few. There'll be a lot of work next year to make it legally binding.
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'You are so much not of the "majority" that your attempts to attach the term to your own views is genuinely cringe-worthy.'
seems like the denial boot is on the other foot now ms ashot.
just watched john prescott discussing gordo's massive effort to help make the conference slightly less of a failure than it was. i had to chuckle yesterday when i watched gordo declare he will be leading an international effort to make the 'accord' binding. thus it is doomed!
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Bottom line: As weak & flimsy as this deal is, it nonetheless overrides all the voices of all the naysayers.
The worst offenders are on the record as saying they agree to commit to stop offending.
They even commit to making amends.
In that sense, absolutely, this is a START, and it is a written statement that they can be held to. There's no room for pretending they have not recognised what needs to be done, nor issued an Executive Order (from their lofty heights) for a new, sounder, dramatically different kind of approach to human activity.
And I do agree with Paul Reynolds that it is time to budget adequate time & resources for these efforts, addressing the single biggest problem ever faced by Humankind -- Extinction -- so that the necessary consultations take place in a more orderly, less-pressured, and more wholesome atmosphere.
Such conferences really do require maybe six or even eight weeks of actual consultation time. Schedule a big pow-wow of leaders at the Opening -- so they can articulate their virtuous intentions -- follow by six weeks of daily meetings -- conclude with a Reconvening of Leaders & a formal Treaty. That should be the plan for COP16.
And yes, all nations need to have their voices heard. That COP15 did in a number of ways enable.
It has been a Turning Point Conference + Summit, and it will drive all future meetings on this Priority One matter, with the interpolation/extrapolation of all the new intelligence we have now gained, and codified.
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Lots of ordinary people use common sense to get through life.
They rely on this to decide who to trust, what to eat, how to live.
They use this common sense to see through the global tosh and see politicians scheming for power and money.
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@pph 65: Hardly going to calm some peoples fears about a world government is it?
@Maria: What do you think Obama should have done? You are presumably aware of the political situation in the US. What we be the point of signing something that had no chance of being ratified by congress and the senate. It would only diminish his political authority and make future progress that much harder. I am afraid you will have to be patient. When the will exists amongst the people then things will move quickly. At the moment only about 40% of Americans accept that AGW is happening. Until that changes very little will happen.
You have waxed lyrical about some of the speeches of the third world delegates, what did you think about the Sudanese delegate's remarks comparing the west's action to the holocaust? I thought it was reprehensible. Darfur?
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No. 65, pph: The fact that there are criminal minds out there plotting to end national sovereignties does not have any bearing on a completely different fact:
that criminal forces acting in collusion have raped the planet & destroyed its environmental health to a degree that the very survival of humankind now is in danger.
Sovereign nations can choose to act together to launch efforts that benefit all of us.
We do not need to surrender to some criminal schizophrenic agenda, to save ourselves.
There may well be people of evil intent who dream of using the UN to subvert human liberty & human rights.
However, if you spend just six or seven hours witnessing, with attention, how these UN meetings actually unfold, with all the various languages & diplomatic protocol, you will be impressed by the fact that "taking over the UN to rob nations of their sovereignty" is just science fiction.
It is not possible. These are intelligent people.
Most of the nations represented are not wealthy. And you know something about the poor? They tend to be very strong-willed. They have to be, to survive. There were some very powerful voices on the floor in the plenary, at the closing of COP15. Many of them are women; many of them are young.
They are not going to be railroaded by any of the kind of people your quoted excerpts here allude to.
The facility I have with many of the languages being used at the COP gave me an excellent basis from which to assess the delegations present. After 50+ hours of working nonstop, with no sleep, these polyglots (most of them, like me, fluent in at least three languages: and I mean FLUENT), spoke elegantly, eloquently, rivetingly of their nation's vital interests, of their own life's work, of their mission, of their commitment.
Many of them felt profoundly insulted and let down by "leaders": and they were right to feel that way.
But they remained focused, determined, gallant & substantive in their deliberations. It was a beautiful moment for international diplomacy. Talk about grace under pressure, and a refusal to be defeated or in any way beaten down by the noise of a relentless interfering din from outsiders, that essentially amounts to shrill background static!
These are not people that are about to let their national or individual sovereignty be snatched away, or their professional integrity sabotaged by any subversive or criminal element of any kind, any where.
One of the reason conspiracy theories of so many hues have any kind of legs, is because most people have such a low opinion of every other human being, that they allow the thought "we're all about to be enslaved" to take root in their imagination.
No, we are not. We are not slaves. And we have outlawed slavery. It is the criminal element that needs to be quaking in their boots. And probably is, somewhere, knowing the free ride is over: people have woken up.
I have been proud to be of this species, over these past weeks, and felt privileged to listen in and to comment. And I believe the kind of courage & resolve so many millions exhibited during these decisive days speaks to the best potential of humanity, when all is said & done.
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@Maria: Extinction??? with comments like these you do not persuade. However heartfelt your views, and you do express yourself eloquently, you cannot scare people into agreement with you. Btw 6.8 billion people is our current population, not what is left after you subtract the 'cabal' of 5 countries who agreed the accord.
At this time accuracy and measured talk is important, not hyperbole.
This is a process, as more scientific research is done, as it is better explained to the public, as new technology is developed, progress will be made, but it will only be made with the people, not against them.
Peace.
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Interesting lecture for any who havent seen it
http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml
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" @Maria: Extinction??? with comments like these you do not persuade. "
Here's something to think over:
With our civilisation we're teaching eskimos cost accountancy but we aren't teaching cost accountants how to fish in icewaters.
Extinction faces every creature that specializes. Humans are specialising in living in an artificial reality.
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@infinity: Yes I thought it was excellent.
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The gargantuan arrogance of the US action is appalling. Action to reverse climate change is essential, unless you're in favor of wars over water and tidal waves of migration in the next few decades. (People won't sit still and quietly wait to die in 2085.)
But this was not the way to do it. To hijack a UN conference and come up with a sudden cool --no, hot -- kids' clique. It's a slap in everyone's face that could set back international cooperation on climate change forever. We're passing the point of no return, and Nature, as we know, is a Mother.
I'd even be willing to overlook the strong-arm tactics if they'd meant we had serious climate control forced on the gasbags (US, China ...), but this looks like worse than nothing, like heading off real change.
An outraged US citizen.
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'I have been proud to be of this species, over these past weeks'
Crab Person!!!!!! I knew it! that proves it! bwahahaha
odds on crab people are now 30/1.
sorry couldn't resist!
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'Extinction faces every creature that specializes. Humans are specialising in living in an artificial reality.'
i agree. humans are meant to be generalists. specialisation always has a cost as well as rewards and usually the cost is that if your specialisation stops being as useful as before, you're in trouble.
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Truths: With all due respect to the victims of the Shoah, and all other victims of Nazism, and all other victims of genocide, I think it is time to stop holding language hostage to history.
The word "Holocaust" when capitalised refers to the Shoah.
The word "holocaust" -- uncapitalised -- refers to any huge conflagration. We do not need to have people jumping up in protest anytime someone calls a huge firestorm a "holocaust" -- that is the original meaning.
The whole point of saying we as a human race will "Never Again" tolerate anything resembling Hitler's final solution of extermination of Jews -- or, for that matter, of ANY ethnic group or human DNA strain -- is to say we committed, in the name of Civilisation, NEVER AGAIN to engage in policies that doom large numbers of people to a certain death, without trying to save them.
I don't know the delegate from Sudan enough to know if he was deliberately trying to incite anyone, or to bait anyone. His name, Lumumba, after Patrice Lumumba, does not inspire confidence in me, as a child & grandchild of victims of murderous Communists.
At the same time, I know a perfectly nice man from India whose parents named him "Stalin." Sometimes the first name says more about the parents, than the person.
What I don't doubt is that the delegate from Sudan spoke out of pain, agony, even terror: legitimate terror at the plight of his countrymen. Sudan has not been a happy place to be for a long, long, long time.
There is no question that climate change is making it worse, and that continued warming will literally lead to a scorching death for many, many unfortunate Sudanese -- especially young children, and the most vulnerable.
What words would you use to describe a situation in which thousands and thousands of children, your own amongst them, were doomed to walk across a blistering desert, with no water anywhere, with no food? What would you say to a poor pregnant teen, pregnant from a rape she survived, who faces labour, and is walking across this landscape with a couple of younger siblings to care for?
We must stop getting so irritated at the people who are in pain. The pain is legitimate. No one is insulting the memory of those who perished before -- but we do have a right to demand relief -- and expect relief -- GENUINE RELIEF -- for those who are in agony today.
China is very active in Sudan. American companies benefit from precious & rare metals being mined for a pittance in Africa, that we depend on for our vital telecom & gadgetry.
So we have to do right by these people. And we have to stop making excuses & taking forever. These are human beings. You want to reduce population growth? So do I. But that means acting to reduce FUTURE growth, rather than merely abandoning people to die an excruciating death on a bleached, dessicated wasteland, literally being cooked to death cell by cell.
Indifference to their plight can legitimately be compared to indifference to genocide & similar atrocities. It can be compared to standing by and recording the suffering of a 15-year-old girl being raped for two hours by a gang of criminals, while the police & responsible adults were only minutes -- yards -- away, not doing their jobs -- and that in enlightened California, just a few miles from one of the world's great universities, in a populous and ostensibly very "democratic" advanced society.
It is morally repugnant to be indifferent to the suffering of others -- especially when you are in a position to actually intervene and help.
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Mr Forefathers: Charming. You think I'm a crustacean.
Not so fast.
As for "specialists/generalists": well, gentlemen (and you are): Mothers tend to be generalists. They have to be. Or, rather, they need to specialise in many areas.
Extinction, for those who doubt, is a reality, whether from falling fertility rates or falling oxygen levels -- or, more likely, a convergence of the two forces.
Never before have humans had to contemplate the possibility of their own Extinction. Yet it is a reality today, that we have to think about.
And I know there are those who say: "Hooray! Bring it on!" I've met some of them, in these blogs...
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taste like crab look like people
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Good night or Good morning to everyone out there, friends and interlocutors and colleagues alike.
HUGE THANKS, Richard Black, Colleagues, BBC.
HUGE THANKS, Her Majesty's Government. God bless you all, from the Queen all the way to the youngest page.
More tomorrow -- have a safe journey, if you are traveling -- our youngest is, visiting London for the Christmas break, so he can spend time with the older brother.
So here's for Holiday Cheer to all of you in the United Kingdom! And back stronger!
Oceans & galaxies of love to you, and all you love.
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lady i jest. i think you're a paid propagandist with a penchant for 'earth mother' lectures. no offence.
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This is what it's all about:
http://www.matador94.nl/global-climate-related/u-n-climate-chief-pachauri-cashes-in-on-tata-owned-corus-carbon-credits
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"What words would you use to describe a situation in which thousands and thousands of children, your own amongst them, were doomed to walk across a blistering desert, with no water anywhere, with no food?"
Mental illness.
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"The gargantuan arrogance of the US action is appalling."
The President proposes, Congress disposes -- most policy decisions have to be passed by members of Congress, who are ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE.
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83. At 2:36pm on 19 Dec 2009, tears of our forefathers wrote:
'lady i jest. i think you're a paid propagandist with a penchant for 'earth mother' lectures. no offence'
I agree.
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" who are ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE."
Including the people who don't have the money to move house if the sea level rises.
Including the people who have read the science and agree there's a significant risk.
You and your noisy friends are only a small part. Being the noisiest doesn't mean you should get your way. That's what four-year-olds think.
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Maria:
Do you live on the planet Earth? Or are you just visiting?
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"i agree. humans are meant to be generalists."
But if society collapses, who will survive the longest? Those with pots of money who've led privileged sheltered lives, or the poor who know how to survive off the land because that's what they have to do?
When the land becomes sea or desert, the poor will have to move where the ivory towers (gated communities) have their land.
We've become specialists at letting a tiny fraction know how to feed and clothe ourselves and sit behind computers doing work that merely moves numbers.
When society collapses those least able to survive generations will be the ones to survive the short term.
You really didn't read the post, did you, teary. We're not generalists any more. The ones using the resources don't know how to produce them.
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Your measure of people’s ability is down to how elegantly they put their points forward having been deprived of sleep! Are not the facts more important to gather, than how they are portrayed?
"..the very survival of humankind now is in danger."
I'm sorry Maria, now you’re getting all religious on me, and that does not go down well. Sounds like you are convinced, so you now see it as your duty to convince others. Open discussion may work but hopefully the scare tactics are dropped.
Presumably you endorse this approach?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKUHY-3tuwM
I do not and would urge others not to use scare tactics to try ‘training’ people for what amounts to a political objective. That would be reprehensible.
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"Lots of ordinary people use common sense to get through life.
They rely on this to decide who to trust, what to eat, how to live."
Says someone who watches "The World's Dumbest Criminals" and doesn't understand what they're watching.
Why does your country require so many warning labels if common sense was
a) common
b) used
?
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@Maria: I am on your side, my language is different, but I am. My compassion for the dispossessed and poor of the world is as great as yours. To use language more akin to yours: the stain of colonialism is a blight on our history, some of the actions of western (and now eastern) companies in the third world have been little short of rape & pillage. At the same time the leaders of those afflicted countries have failed to share the proceeds of that plundered wealth with their own people. It has happened in our own countries too, until democracy gave us at least some measure of control. The proxy wars in the third world between the USA and Russia did untold damage, all true, but suggesting that myself and others are indifferent (perhaps you are not, I am not sure) and by inaction "abandoning people to die an excruciating death on a bleached, dessicated wasteland, literally being cooked to death cell by cell." is somewhat offensive. Just because my language is muted and generally not extreme does not imply indifference. As for my personal actions, short of dying and never getting on a plane again, I fail to see how I could do more. Would that the world be a fairer place. I actually am optimistic because I believe we all do care, even if we have different opinions about what is to be done. While it may seem obvious to you, it is not so to others, so you have to persuade. You argue your case with commendable passion, but sometimes I think your choice of words does your case more harm than good. My hope for the future, much like yours: a healthier, happier, more equitable, sustainable place for humanity to live in. Peace.
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Flatearther, why do you revel in ignorance? Flat-earthers are people who are ignorant and you take their moniker on yourself in apparent pride.
PS Do you live on the same planet earth I do? Because this one isn't flat.
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Last point: anyone remember Cutney and Sparley going on about how you can tell the personality of someone by their rants?
Note how rants against Maria have sprung up recently.
By their works shall ye judge them.
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infinity:
did you see the Manbearpig episode of south park?
also i think its 'taste like crab, walk like people'. i thought most proAGW folks gave up on SP after the super serial manbearpig episode.
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ryan #45.
"if you take the GDP of the EU, USA, Japan and China (throw in a few more what the hey) and divide up the 100 billion between them it's like 0,00024% of their GDP gosh that must smart on the old hip pocket"
amen to that!
bowmanthebard #46.
agree with first paragraph, poor (in a sense) Gordon Brown. also agree (strongly) with the points made in #31, a non-partisan media would make a real difference.
Maria Ashot #56.
"Their efforts in defence of humanity's survival & health are noble & laudable."
one does not have to be deeply cynical to disagree.
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With Christmas approaching, someone should have locked the doors when all the delegates were inside. I'm sure it would have had the desired effect on the western nations and an equitable deal would have been reached on Christmas Eve.
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Maria Ashot,
I hope you don't mind, I did a google search of your name because I was impressed by the way you write. Your writing carries a certain 'weight' and a sense of authority. I have enjoyed reading what you have written.
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ahh. prof monckton is the ubertroll from the other day Uwhateverthenumberwas. gotcha.
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@ quixote 76:
"The gargantuan arrogance of the US action is appalling. Action to reverse climate change is essential, unless you're in favor of wars over water and tidal waves of migration in the next few decades."
I think the US favours the military solution for Climate Change. When the choice is between spending more money on actions to combat climate change or spending more money on military hardware, I think we can see how they plan to deal with the problem of diminishing resources and uninhabitable regions.
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@94
i can field that one i think. such insults are now so meaningless that they are being adopted as badges of pride and evidence of the bullying and appalling rhetoric and tactics of the truebelievers.
sorry if that was a swing and a miss mr flatearther.
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does anyone doubt that all militaries would be exempt by their governments of the crippling anti-co2 laws?
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#92:
"Why does your country require so many warning labels"
Oh great! First of all we get all these unwanted, ridiculous and patronising warning labels forced upon us, and then we get the likes of you using the fact that we have them as a stick to beat us with
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I am relieved that COP15 ended in a shambles. I have listened, read, researched and debated with both sides. I fear that what this has revealed is that this is not a matter of "settled science" to anyone that looks beyond the media and political messages. It is high time that the puerile insults stopped and some genuine open debate went ahead. The hectoring of the BBC, the Government and some apparently discredited scientists is convincing more and more people that they have something to hide. I must say that I find the vitriol and invective reminiscent of teenage tantrums and the preaching by the Government (after their track record) and the BBC makes me want to kick the cat (figuratively). I think this whole "shut up and do as your told" attitude by both is counter-productive.
I conducted an unscientific poll among work colleagues, among neighbours, among Councillors, and among people attending a Christmas party... Whilst all acknowledged that the earth may be warming, I did not find a single person who believed the CO2 causality. Of these people a very high proportion were successful doctors, solicitors, consultants, and scientists.
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Yes, Peter, they were forced on to you by the very people who "use common sense".
'merkins.
Now how well did that go? Badly.
Common sense isn't.
It certainly missed your post.
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Yeah.
Look at this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
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TOOF #100
how slow are you! got the uber troll on his first post under the new (and very witty) moniker and skipped past his later posts
and this is what the real Monckton has to say
http://sppiblog.org/news/parturient-montes-nascetur-ridiculus-mus#more-314
I know this is inviting another volley of ad hom for my man, but he can take it
Maria Ashot - dont agree with a lot of what you say but I certainly admire your stamina. Like you I am (or was) into languages. French, German, Russian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, and Arabic - a really beautiful but very difficult language.
To all 'as salaam alaikum'
My hope and wish for the new year is that the money that the West is to shell out following COP15 will actually be applied in alleviating poverty and improving living conditions in developing countries. Of course that will only be effective if they are allowed to develop affordable energy strategies which currently means based on fossil fuels.
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107: The article is clearly wrong because wikipedia is a load of rubbish.
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Monkton et al have set themselves up for a big fall when temperature continues rising over the next 10 years. The whole psuedoskeptic movement has been crying cooling and "no warming" for so long that when the next record years occur the whole psuedoskeptic movement is going to suffer a massive collapse.
It's going to be very hard for them to switch to "we expected it to warm" without suffering immeasurable damage from the quotes about cooling they've made in recent years.
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@U14260427 #106
Are you trying to get yourself banned with that "merkins" comment? Do you know what the word means?
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Maria Ashot
I too have just Googled your name and I have another question for you :-
"As you keep 'harping' on about your belief in AGW and therefore that we all need to cut our CO2 emissions, how come you so often fly with BA?"
And I note you still haven't answered my questions in earlier posts!
You see a few of us actually get on with taking the right action to help preserve our environment, and have been doing so for many years.
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Right then, there is a hidden solution to it all.
We shall soon hear of increased space exploration and eventual colonisation, for the few favoured ones who are ready to accept a new behavoural code out there and on the solar system's planets and their moons.
Or of rapid deployment task forces to save out sinking islands or catastrophised areas and their populations, and to take possession, if international law allows it, of salvaged areas.
Or still more mass immigration and boat people criss-crossing land and sea in search of a safer abode, only to see humanity pushing them back into their rejected origins for the sake of ethnic purity and leaving what little is left to those who can fend for themselves better in a clustered and protected group.
It will be a heyday for new theorists to subvert old book practices and write out new theses on how man can be human to his neighbour,creating novel political, social and humanitarian systems to get him by perhaps age 40.
Interesting times, indeed, lay ahead for those who can make hay while the sun shines and who can delve deep into social and scientific problems without burning midnight oil ......
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This is an important issue. No doubt of that.
However, the scientific analysis of temperature trends over the last 1000 years is not totally clear and not totally conclusive. The accuracy of the proxy data in particular is of concern. In addition, the causes for periodic temperature variations, such as during the Medieval Warm Period, are not totally clear and not proven.
No doubt about that either.
If you do believe that the scientific data is totally accurate and unquestionably clear and conclusive, then you need to read this page: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/climategate_analysis.html
Read all the correspondence; I have, and it is a sad story. It shows that some of the scientists providing climate data for the UN are simply "fanatical believers" who think that the ends justify the means. They believe that it is more important to report a clear conclusive picture than a truer but less conclusive picture which shows that further investigation is necessary. They also believe that anyone who does not agree with them should be removed from the peer review process and that any publications that question their work should be blacklisted. The culture that is apparent from this correspondence is not good, and many truly honest and open minded scientists are appalled these few people have managed to discredit a whole community.
This work needs to be repeated by open minded and totally honest scientists who have the required level of integrity, so as to provide real confidence in the conclusions. The world deserves absolutely reliable evidence and conclusions. The style of analysis should be balanced and open minded. For example, where there is doubt, this should be clearly stated. Where data has been selectively removed or adjusted, the results, both before and after the adjustment, should be shown. Integrity is essential. This is an important issue. No doubt about that.
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For a hilarious rundown of the proAGW medias hysterical response to the failure of the really expensive conference:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100020337/copenhagen-the-sweet-sound-of-exploding-watermelons/comment-page-2/#comment-100110691
i've just read moniots eulogy for planet earth and our species. hilarious!
to be fair, the beeb has been far more restrained than the rest. kudos.
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Thank you for your blog. I am looking forward to reading your wrap up of the whole experience. I am dying to know how the negotiators survive this whole ordeal. I am wondering if you or someone from the BBC can get an interview with one of the negotiators and ask them not only the "news" questions, but also questions about what they ate, how they slept, did they have places for them to crash at the Bella Center... What they did to keep themselves going. I was there for the first week and was completely burnt out by the end of it. I have been following the proceedings from home. Also, glad you got in a question at Yvo's last Press Conference. Thanks again. Wyn
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@108
rofl. my astroturf radar must be malfuctioning. despite my suspicious nature i try to give people the benefit of the doubt until they demonstrate the calibre of their character! and he's certainly done that!
fight the good fight.
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infinity:
your 109 post made me chuckle, despite my low opinion of wiki's vaunted impartiality on a number of subjects.
your 110 post brought home just how disassociating and confusing the effects of buying into the proAGW brainwashing memes can be. i feel for you. also: skeptics aren't predicting anything, we're questioning why climatologists haven't been truthful about the gap between their predictions and what has happened/is happening. maybe it gets cold, maybe it gets warm, all we know is that it has very little to do with co2 increases.
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Having heard and read much of the hysteria around this conference in Hoaxenhagen that was going to save the world - seeing as we are beyond umpteen tipping points but the next jolly somewhere in the world will save us - I'm looking for a little bit of honesty.
To salvage anything from this expensive farce, please admit Richard that nothing actually happened apart from some journalists racking up airmiles and expenses claims?
Act on CO2? It's all just an act.
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#80 Maria Ashot wrote:
"Never before have humans had to contemplate the possibility of their own Extinction."
Never before? -- Religious nutters have been banging on about one Apocalypse or another since prehistory -- this is one of the oldest psychoses in the Book! Surely you've heard the expression "the end is nigh" more than once?
Every individual human will die, whatever happens -- in the long run we are all dead. If your worry is that people will die prematurely, I agree we must try to avoid that. But at the moment, most people die prematurely bececause of poverty, not because they get caught out in the middle of a desert! People who die in storm surges (such as New Orleans, Bangladesh) are again usually poor people who can't afford the risk of leaving their property unattended when bad weather theatens. But poor people will always choose low-rent areas, through economic necessity, and the low-rent areas are always the ones that are threatened by something (that's why the rent is low). If the sea level were to recede, the total area of low-lying land would increase, not decrease, so it's likely that more poor people, not less, would get killed in storm surges.
The least bad solution is probably to make every effort to minimize poverty, not try to lower the sea level.
If your worry is that "there will be fewer humans", I don't share that worry at all. If the world population gets smaller because more people use contraceptives more, that seems to me to be a good thing. If the human population chose to have fewer and fewer children so that the population became tiny, I'm not sure evn that would be all that bad -- although it wouldn't be good for science or art.
If the population got so tiny that there was only one person left, and he died alone -- that would be very sad, but it wouldn't be the Apocalypse you describe, and it isn't likely to happen anytime soon. All of us here on the blog will be long dead by then, and we can't make reliable decisions for future generations any more than past generations can make reliable decisions for us.
So just try to be decent, and try to enjoy yourself -- while you can, because we are all going to die. Sorry to be the one to tell you if this hasn't occurred to you before.
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Barack Obama, the seagull president.
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#110: And what if we don't see any warming in the next 10 years? What will YOU be saying then, or will you simply disappear back into your anonymous obscurity?
Funny you should mention, "We expected it to warm". The warmists have used a similar excuse to explain away the lack of model-predicted warming over the past decade.
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Prof Monckton:
I adopted this monicker because that is what our great leader and leading scientist Brown said I was.
Quite right tears of ....
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Maria #80: Falling oxygen levels?
Which planet are you calling from?
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@Maria Ashot
As you appear to be the dominant poster here - I believe we are all aware of your opinions on the subject, and your 'hero worship' of Richard Black.
Would you please provide some bona-fides which would indicate that you have a clue about these things which you speak?
Can you also provide a list of NGO's which you are a member of?
As for the rest of us, I think we got your message, and your repeating it over and over is not going to make it more believable.
The sky is not falling. Except for those with their hands out - support for the 'theories on global warming' has been eroding steadily for the last several years. This erosion will continue, just as erosion will continue on the island nation of Tuvalu - which is not being covered by rising sea levels, but slowly eroding and sinking as atolls in the pacific do.
While you think you may have it all figured out and have true belief in your faith - the rest of us do not share your religion. Fortunately, here in America, we have freedom of religion - so you cannot enforce your religious lifestyle upon us. Your dreams of a world government are dead, face it, you lost.
It would also appear that you don't practice what you preach. If you did, you would be living in a happy little straw hut in Africa, burning dung, or tires to keep warm and cook what little meager food you managed to grow without modern technology. In my view, that makes you a hypocrit. Please tell me - have you ever been to a hospital? Did you calculate the carbon footprint of that hospital? Or the carbon associated with the development of all that medical equipment and medicines.
Its funny, your 'hero' Richard Black applauds China's commitment to 'reduce carbon intensity' by 45%. What a joke. China will do this anyway as they upgrade infrastructure and build more coal plants with new technology - as opposed to the 60's and 70's technology which dominates the landscape there. Not only that, but with current growth rates in China, China's CO2 emissions increase will be more than the total current emissions of all the OCED nations put together.
Face it, you are champion of a lost cause. I am also astounded that you can be so arrogant as to believe that you can dial a meter to control 'earth's temperature'. My my, what a 'god complex' you have. You do know that there are mental professionals who can help you - but you have to want to be helped first.
Perhaps now, Greenpeace can go back to worthy causes, like saving the whales and the rain forests - although I doubt it.
The agenda is obvious - redistribution of wealth. It won't work - just take a look at people who win the lottery - their lives end up being worse than before they won - and the money which should last a lifetime is long gone in a matter of years.
It it not really hard to predict that more people will be affected by droughts, floods and other natural disasters, as there are more people to be affected, additionally, more people are living in areas prone to floods, droughts and coastal areas.
Twenty years ago, much of the coastal areas here in Texas were undeveloped - now so much of it is wall to wall beach houses - built on land which is only a few feet above sea level, and the dunes which protected the barrier islands were bulldozed over to make room for all the beach houses - unsuitable development.
How many people live in the deserts of Samalia and Ethiopia now as compared to 30 years ago? There were already too many people living there back then.
The biggest issues which face mankind this century are land use, water use and population explosion. These are issues which we need to be addressing today - not arguments about poorly understood 'science' - which without transparency - is not even really science, but politics.
The root of all our environmental and humanistic issues is population explosion, particularly in the third world. The only answer which has been shown to work is development - with cheap energy and cheap food. Education follows, and people begin to procreate less. In some developed populations, population growth has actually become negative.
How about focusing on real issues with real solutions? We have enough of those without made-up ones, like man made global warming because of CO2 emissions.
Cheers.
Kealey
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Maria Ashot #41: "We have been in this effort since the 1980s. Some of us since before."
Maria Ashot #71: "We do not need to surrender to some criminal schizophrenic agenda, to save ourselves."...in reference to quotes by Maurice Strong.
The "criminal schizophrenic agenda" you appear to attribute to Strong's quotes, (~1991/2), was not part of the "effort" that you yourself were involved with "since before" 1981?
At around that time just what "effort" were you involved with and did you see Copenhagen as potentially a culmination of those “efforts”?
For me the Global Warming/Climate Change has been used as apolitical football since, and maybe before, Sir Crispin Tickell (UN) seems to have suggested to Lady Thatcher that the global warming science could be used as a reason/explanation for closing down some coal mines, (which must have sounded like a great idea to the then PM), and then jumping on the nuclear bandwagon to create the required replacement energy. This happening just as the scientifically backed global cooling was obviously not happening.
John Major seemed not to need the science and things “global warming” seemed to calm down, maybe he had other motives for not needing to use the science, I know not.
PM Blair picked it up again in ’97 and made a big play of it for Kyoto.
Al Gore, after failing to become President of the US, picked up the ball and made it his game.
Since then we seem to have been indoctrinating our children with visions of doom. They are taught this in school very much the same way that I was ‘taught’ the Catechism (~1960).
And we are told that this is all for the good of mankind. Hey, did my school teacher not tell something like that too?
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What a total waste of time and taxpayers money. Perhaps now we can put all this Climate Change rubbish (built on very dodgy so called science) in the bin and concentrate on rebuilding our economy.
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Infinity #110
'Monkton et al have set themselves up for a big fall when temperature continues rising over the next 10 years.'
That sounds a bit like a prediction. You have obviously forgotten that AGW proponents dont make predicitions for the simple reason that predictions can be tested against reality.
Of course reality is also a problem in climate science as it is by no means clear what the mean global surface temperature has been over the last 100 years. We will hopefully get a much better idea of just how accurate the various datasets are over the next 12 months or so. Until we do it would be sensible in my view to keep an open mind.
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@tears of our forefathers #118
(@infinity)
TOOF, you just don't get it, do you.
The scientists could find a cure or a convincing debunk for global warming tomorrow. And the City carbon traders would bleat "but we need carbon trading to fix the economy".
And the government will go "oh, we must do what the City tells us, perhaps we could re-label carbon 'emissions' as carbon 'use'".
Don't believe me? Look at the size of bankers bonuses this year.
(@Underpaid banking clerks. No problem with you getting a few extra quid.)
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re 128:
Sounds like you are pushing the old contradiction of "manmade global warming is unfalsifiable" vs "manmade global warming has been falsified". Ie another heads I lose, tails I can't win situation.
Current science imo shows that rising co2 has a strong warming effect on climate.
In lieu of any reason to expect an equal and opposite cooling effect from another source over the next 10 years, I expect warming a warming trend. Skeptics of course don't expect cooling or warming, they have no explainatory theory for global temperature.
Already I feel we see evidence of ongoing warming. Recent months are as warm as 2003. Both had an El Nino, but 2003 was at solar maximum while 2009 has been in a solar minimum. How much warmer would it be if we were in solar maximum today?
I don't need to rely on surface temperatures to see this
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1990
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@maria Ashot #71 who wrote...
criminal forces acting in collusion have raped the planet & destroyed its environmental health to a degree that the very survival of humankind now is in danger.
Oooooook. You realize the warming rate is only about .5C/century, right? You realize we should already be experiencing 40% of whatever additional "forcing" we'll have for a doubling of CO2, right? You realize that in spite of ever-increasing (and faster than expected) emissions we're still below the IPCC's expected CO2 levels, right?
None of this is "alarming" or in ANY way threatening mankind's survival. In fact, the planet warms disproportionately...with almost no warming in the equatorial regions and all the warming in regions that are cold limited. Rising temperatures would increase, not decrease the availability of fresh water. Rising CO2 means increased crop yields...ESPECIALLY if the plants are drought stressed. Cheap energy brings greater infrastructure, ability to adapt to ANYTHING, increased prosperity, reduces poverty and all of these changes eventually lead to a reduced population growth.
Your preferred methods of dealing with a non-existent crisis are a far greater threat to humankind than ANY amount of climate change suggested (but pretty much disproved) by the IPCC.
I'm a moderate environmentalist myself...but I deal with THIS world. I have no idea what sort of magical fantasy world you're dealing with...but I assure you it does not exist. The bulk of the people are far too imperfect to work within the easily corrupted framework you propose...and again the propblems you're trying to solve show no signs of manifesting (not at anything near the levels YOU worry about).
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@Maria Ashot writes:
"Mango, You are so much not of the "majority" that your attempts to attach the term to your own views is genuinely cringe-worthy."
Maria, I do believe you have it backwards - your views are so much 'not of the majority' that your ultra liberalism genuinely laughable.
The overwhelming majority are not buying this. Personally, I think Harvard should be burned down, to prevent the poisoning of minds with liberal garbage - like that which comes spewing from your keyboard.
This isn't science - its politics. Just like politics, its all about perception - not reality. Its all about money and corruption.
For a time, people were buying into it - as the old saying goes: if you say it over and over, people will begin to believe. However, the facade is finally burning down. The poor third world nations are buying it - because it says that all their woes are the fault of 'the American lifestyle' and they should be paid. LOL.
Simple fact: we don't really understand earth's climate enough to make any predictions. Those who are arrogant enough to believe that we 'know enough' to control earth's climate are incredibly arrogant and ignorant (read stupid idiots).
But, please, carry on, I do get a good laugh from your posts.
Cheers.
Kealey
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@129
hmm, possibly the only post (and theres been loads of the 'end is nigh' type of comments) to genuinely worry me.
thanks for the food for thought. and in many ways i agree and am (even more) angry than before. surely the recent derivative trouble will incline them to caution? carbon traders hardly own the City.
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maria:
i am very impressed with your cv tbh. can i (feel free to ignore me if this too personal) ask what the political opinions of your husband are? i understand he fled the collapse of the soviet union to the west?
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@infinity #110 who wrote...
Monkton et al have set themselves up for a big fall when temperature continues rising over the next 10 years. The whole psuedoskeptic movement has been crying cooling and "no warming" for so long that when the next record years occur the whole psuedoskeptic movement is going to suffer a massive collapse.
I don't know, it never shut up the people trying to crush the economy for pseudo-humanitarian climate reasons. I don't think they'll shut their stop complaining if the El Nino collapses and we have a significantly lower lower temperature. (then we'll have had no significant warming for about 12 years.) We CERTAINLY won't have had the .4C/decade warming so often suggested by the AGW camp...and let's face it, this is pretty much business as usual.
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Re #37 Donald Rennie
"There is nothing impossible about solar panels and wind turbines."
Of course solar and wind generation are perfectly feasible but the cost of the electricity produced is at least twice that of the electricity produced by burning fossil fuels. Even worse the cost of storing power for times when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow make the whole concept totally financially impractical as a primary power source.
"So what if they cost more, we will save with reduced health-care and insurance costs."
The health-care costs associated with emissions from fossil fuel burning power stations are minuscule.
"There is nothing impossible about electric trains, which actually improve living standards and stimulate economic growth."
The capital cost of electrifying rail lines is very high and more CO2 is produced by generating the necessary electricity in coal fired power stations than is produced by the equivalent diesel powered locomotive.
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Noone is expecting .4C/decade warming
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tears of our forefathers #133.
"surely the recent derivative trouble will incline them to caution? carbon traders hardly own the City."
you're very optimistic; think 'gold rush', carbon trading is the new Klondike.
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looks like some vengeful point making is being performed
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18307-sceptical-climate-researcher-wont-divulge-key-program.html
Who knows people might be demanding the source code for UAH next
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David G #136.
"The health-care costs associated with emissions from fossil fuel burning power stations are minuscule."
respiratory problems are on the up; also diesel engine emissions pollute (especially bad in cities).
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hmm, never underestimate the power of politicians 'logic' and greed. fair point. please don't call me optimistic i consider it something of an insult ;)
seriously though how much of the traders profits are based on this lie as opposed to genuine market forces?
based on fraud? should be pretty a strong case to try outlaw it. time to switch up my objectives i guess. thanks for the apocalypse ( as in the revelatory sense) you 2!
the irony of this is quite exquisite.
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Nothing suspends disbelief like moral fervour.
Much of the mass AGW gullibility of the past decade was fuelled by moral indignation at the disputed election result between Gore and Bush.
A lot of people think: Gore = Good, Bush = Bad, which is fine -- everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Unfortunately, many people go further and think: Gore Good, so what he is saying must be true, and Bush Bad so what he is saying must be false… Hey, is it me, or is it getting really hot in here?
Someone Maria Ashot regards as a real saint must have told her that we are all running out of oxygen!
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@tears of our forefathers #133
"recent derivative trouble"
Do you mean "recent" as in "recent past"? I gather one of their current bleats is that continuation of unregulated derivatives is essential for the economy.
"incline them to caution"
Ah, see that's what I like about you sceptics. Every so often you come out with a comic gem. The word "caution" applied to the City. I trust the humour is deliberate.
You: "carbon traders hardly own the City"
Andrew Ager: "It is still a relatively new industry with annual trades of around €300bn every year. But this could grow to around $3tn compared to the $1.5tn market there is for oil"
From the Guardian (highlights mine): "The speed of that growth will depend on whether the Copenhagen summit gives a go-ahead for a low-carbon economy, but Ager says whatever happens schemes such as the ETS will expand around the globe."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/29/carbon-trading-market-copenhagen-summit
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infinity #139
looks like some vengeful point making is being performed
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18307-sceptical-climate-researcher-wont-divulge-key-program.html
Who knows people might be demanding the source code for UAH next
and it's completely wrong, infinity, the data and code should be made available. I have registered my agreement on this matter over at RealClimate
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@Maria Ashott
I was going to respond, but everybody else has said as much as needs saying
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richards dropped another one folks. a great steaming pile of hysteria to boot.
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jr4412 #140:
"respiratory problems are on the up; also diesel engine emissions pollute (especially bad in cities)."
Respiratory problems are now higher than they were in the days when everyone was burning coal in their fireplaces and the air was thick with smoke, are they?
I will agree with you about the diesel fumes, however. I find it ironic that one isn't allowed to light up a fag on a station platform next to a diesel locomotive belching out clouds of choking fumes.
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ok. don't bother being polite to ms basingstoke apparently!!! rofl either way, i thank you for highlighting something i had been neglecting.
watch the grassroot resentment grow.
without an heir to kyoto the mandate for ets and its siblings vanishes.
its going to be an interesting couple of years.
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@tears of our fathers #148
Actually you weren't supposed to be the butt of the joke. Please re-read. I was under the impression we agreed on this one.
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Peter317 #147.
"Respiratory problems are now higher than they were in the days when everyone was burning coal in their fireplaces and the air was thick with smoke, are they?"
apparently so, found this reference, occupational asthma down slightly.
"I find it ironic that one isn't allowed to light up a fag.."
agree. social engineering for the sake of it.
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re 150.
re-reading it, forget the 'apparent'. should read: don't know whether we're back at the repiratory related mortality levels of the early 1950s but, at present, the numbers are going up, see link.
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@149
lol my bad! oh alright i'll keep being polite! looking at it now it does seem less, umm brusque than your earlier post! i've had a wearisome day i apologise for misreading.
can we agree this is UN mandated theft? individual nations need to issue letters of marque and reprisal against the carbon disclosure project to sieze their (55 trillion) assets and some kind of international RICO law seems the best way to go to me: ASAP.
has anyone seen the episode of yes prime minister where jim tries to introduce real democracy and undo the party system before he realises it would undo him too? vote for independent candidates next election peeps and let's teach our 'masters' a lesson.
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#150: The link only supplies two years worth of data - impossible to tell if there's a trend,
But even if there is an increase, it won't be down to power station emissions - which, these days, is virtually 100% CO2 and H2O.
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@infinity #137 RE:Noone is expecting .4C/decade warming
Really??? That's funny because I hear it an awful lot. It seems odd that the assumed increases would not be that high with so many on the AGW side of the table demanding immediate, massive cuts in CO2 just to "limit" warming to 2C. So you're saying that no main AGW group is projecting 3.5C or so higher temperatures by 2100 as a result of business as usual?
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All projections expect about 0.2C/decade initially. Some projections then accelerate to reach as high as 3.5C by 2100, others slow down. It depends on what ghg levels in the atmosphere do.
2100 is simply an arbitary marker, it isn't the point at which temperature peaks so temperature could rise 2C by 2100 and then rise to 2.5C by 2150. I am not sure why there is little focus past 2100.
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@tears of our forefathers #152
No.
The City are jumping on the band-wagon. They seem to have an almost religious sense of competence and entitlement.
Personally with their track record I think that's more to get angry about than simple theft.
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ms/mrs basingstoke
the bandwagon is sinking/breaking up on the prairie. 3 years (the fates/god willing) and its done.
i kind of sensed an element of gloating before which is what put my back up. hope i was wrong.
any opinion on an international Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organisations law? smells good to TOOF.
even i would support the UN on that one.
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Maybe, we should have called it "Hope N Hog on" for hoping something magical would happen while all of us keep hogging as usual.
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@tears of our forefathers #157
"gloating"
Not gloating. Just deep deep cynicism about the City.
Plus I couldn't resist the opportunity to hammer home just how desperately we need regulation to prevent a repeat performance in about five years time.
Why about five years? Because Enron was a warning and we (as a people) took our eyes off the ball. Enron was in 2001. The current sub-prime mortgage related mess first hit the headlines in 2007.
international "RICO"
Not relevant. The problem isn't mobsters. What we do need is some sort of international agreement on how much regulation gets applied to the financial sector. Unfortunately the G20 wimped out on that one.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2009/09/g20_history_and_fudge.html
global warming "band wagon"
I think we have to agree to disagree as to whether there is an actual genuine band wagon. I think it's genuine. You think it's an illusion or a con. Neither of us can prove our point to the other.
But as I tried to show in my earlier post, absence of a robust genuine band wagon doesn't stop the City from using it.
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"the bandwagon is sinking/breaking up on the prairie. "
But how can that be?
This was all a scam by the politicians to tax your wealth and make a new world order and the scientists were playing along at fear for their safety!
Yet these politicians aren't doing that.
How one month changes things, eh?
Global Political Conspiracy from Muslim Commie Marxist Obama and then "Obama sees through the scam" (that apparently he orchestrated).
But as davblo2's list shows, consistency is not the ditto strong suit.
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#160:
"But as davblo2's list shows, consistency is not the ditto strong suit."
Come off it. Ask 10 people for their opinion on something and you'll get 10 different opinions. What you're doing is lumping all those differing opinions together, and then you appear surprised at the inconsistent results you get.
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But they AREN'T just 10 different opinions.
1) there's a lot more than 10
2) they ~INSIST~ that it is right and all those scientists have it wrong
3) they don't even work together
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#162:
"3) they don't even work together"
Now, wouldn't that constitute a conspiracy?
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"Now, wouldn't that constitute a conspiracy?"
Nope. You've never read the 89 theories of denialism, have you? (good name for a book, davblo).
They include "there is no warming" ***and*** "the sun is causing the warming". Or "Nobody argues that it isn't warming, just that it isn't manmade".
They don't work together. They are mutually exclusive.
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#165: You're talking about the opinions of all sorts of people with varying degrees of knowledge and/or ignorance of the subject, or parts thereof.
Equally, or probably more so, I could go on about the often nonsensical and contradictory opinions of those on the other side of the fence - including politicians, the media and people who really should know better. (like Al Gore demonstrating his ignorance by stating that the interior of the Earth is several million degrees)
I have heard people blame virtually everything you care to mention on AGW, and I've heard all sorts of misrepresentations of the science.
Pot, Kettle, Black are three words which spring to mind.
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"(like Al Gore demonstrating his ignorance by stating that the interior of the Earth is several million degrees)"
Citation needed.
"I have heard people blame virtually everything you care to mention on AGW"
Newspapers and talking points. Exactly the source of your "knowledge" that AGW is false.
"and I've heard all sorts of misrepresentations of the science."
Aye, from the denialists.
Read the IPCC reports. They even say where they don't know things.
Unlike Geirlich et al.
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#167:
"Citation needed."
Happy to oblige: (about 40 seconds in)
http://www.tonightshowwithconanobrien.com/video/clips/al-gore-pt4-111209/1175411/
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I am really amazed at the number of people who have been completely taken in by this rubbish. If you look at the variation in seasonal temperature it is far greater than anything that man could do to the environment and is caused purely by the sun or earth's proximity to it. Our money would be far better spent on researching how to cope with a changing climate. The first thing would be to eradicate poverty as that would seem to slow down or stop population explosion. The main cause for most of our problems is overpopulation and nature will try to correct this if we do not. I agree that we should conserve energy and natural resources but not for the reasons that politicians proclaim. We should also strive to make everything we do on this planet as clean as possible so that future generations do not have to live in a dung heap but stop the false reasoning of Global Warming. CO2 is actually essential for plant life and therefore essential for animal including human life. The planet has had much higher levels of CO2 in the past and is still surviving.
It incenses me when I see the costs that have been incurred worldwide from the various unfounded scares. BSE, listeria, Salmonella, Satanic child abuse and many others. Why can people not put common sense into use more often and avoid such huge scams.
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Re #169
Yep, absolutely agree, David, unfortunately 'common sense' seems to be a limited commodity these days.
Fortunately many of the public are less gullible than the BBC and others like to think!!
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Im so happy no climate deal was reached, just imagine the potential disaster. Global warming is real science but the global warming campaign is not, how did we all manage to forget that we (the present human race) are in an interglacial period?, anybody with an Internet connection can google what ICE AGE and INTERGLACIAL mean!, how did alarmisim lead to such a large concentration of world leaders in one place to discuss a non starter, amazing, simply amazing.
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In this world, some people are put in a position that the "World has not given them the skills, to act out thire desteney".
You can all see from the above,that I am one such person??
The rules on links to other www. sites are rite large.???
So I take my path in the great skeem of things to ask you all, to travel to Richard Vere-Compton facebook, and go to my notes section and read.
Co2 is King, and Orwellian Dream.
Do the above for me, and you can all play your part in saving not just the people of "Haiti", but the peoples of the world.
You will see from Co2 is King, that I have found a way using off the shelf kit, to convert Co2 into a clean fuel.
Now you all need to know who I try Google on this???
The only ???? left have I broken the house laws????
Richard Vere-Compton
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