This Dot Earth blog story on the United Nations Climate Change Conferance which just convened in Poznan, Poland is perhaps the most important and underreported news story of the past two weeks. This conferance was essentially to discuss and negotiate the intitial terms for the next UN climate initiative which will replace Kyoto when it expires in 2012. This article discusses that things did not go so well.
The article is interesting, but I found the comments to be even more so with a mix of relevant comments and a spur of the moment "debate" between Global Warming believors and doubtors.
Here is my addition to the fray:
I am another of the "fools" who has bought into the myth of Global Warming. It snowed here in southern Mississippi last week so that must mean Global Warming is a lie. Please. I think we should start using Friedman's term "Global Weirding" and perhaps these inane "But it's not hot here" arguments will end.
To not leave without being relevant to the article, I'll add my 2 cents. It's been said before, but I think the most important thing is to find solutions that have a relatively immediate and tangible benefit to rich and poor countries alike. I don't know what this is, but sadly if the only benefit is "for the good of mankind" many countries will not buy in. You can't blame the poor for this attitude and wouldn't expect anything less from the rich.
Matt Stambaugh
Webmaster and Contributor
www.thegreeniuses.com
2 comments:
You especially can't blame the poor when the rich are doing the same thing. At least the poor can say "hey, you got rich developing a dirty economy for 100+ years, now it's our turn and you don't want us to do the same thing?" I was paraphrasing Friedman, BTW. Until the rich countries (notably the U.S.) show some leadership, how we can expect the poor countries to change?
Follow up: Here is a more in-depth and neutral article on the conference: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/world/13climate.html
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