Climate change crack-up?
As world leaders gather to discuss climate change at the United Nations and the G20, the Europeans have begun to finger the United States as the bad guy. Noting that the Americans have been refusing to sign up to internationally binding carbon emission targets, EU officials are also unhappy that Congress is unlikely to enact legislation in time for December’s Copenhagen conference.
In what should be seen as a concerted effort to up the pressure on President Barack Obama, the Europeans are now pointing to China as the good guy, and are heavily promoting the new measures it is about to announce. And, not-too-subtly, the UN official in charge of the conference is echoing the European position:
“This suite of policies will take China to be a world leader on addressing climate change, and it will be quite ironic to hear that expressed tomorrow in a country (the United States) that is firmly convinced that China is doing nothing to address climate change,” [UN climate chief Yvo] de Boer said.
In the United States, by contrast, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that China will not be proposing this week to sign up to internationally-binding hard caps; rather, it will simply be including intensity targets (much maligned in Canada), in its next five-year plan — a move not likely to allay the competitive concerns of U.S. producers facing a hard cap or of the legislators who represent them. Nor will it reduce China’s overall use of coal.
Still, the pressure on President Obama in the coming days and in the months leading up to Copenhagen will be intense. Already embattled on health care and Afghanistan — with Iran and the Mideast not going swimmingly either — he’ll be casting around for allies wherever he can find them, which may explain the conclusion of a piece penned by the acting U.S. ambassador to Canada in today’s National Post:
[More]
Popularity: 14% [?]
Male, retired and the rest is of little interest to anyone. The site keeps me busy and if it helps others to stay abreast of daily events then my time is well spent.
LG Says:
They still haven’t figured out that we aren’t buying this climate change snake oil. Guess they don’t care what we think.
Posted on September 22nd, 2009 at 4:44 pm
hynd Says:
And they will not until they start loosing elections on the topic by the droves. How is it that the general public can be so much ahead of the elected offiicals on this topic? Did they stop paying attention when the sciencists said the science was over because they did not want to complete the work?
Posted on September 22nd, 2009 at 6:11 pm
beentheredonethat Says:
Hmmmm. They found a 383 million year old skeleton of a crocodile-like animal in the Arctic a while back. Crocodiles used to live in Canada’s Arctic? Sheez, what’s up with that! There weren’t even human beings 383 million years ago but the climate changed anyway? So today we should panic when the climate is changing once again, for the umpteenth time since the Arctic crocodile lived?
Posted on September 22nd, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Mac Says:
They’ve seen so much evidence that citizens don’t think, they think everyone is that way…
Posted on September 22nd, 2009 at 6:57 pm
LG Says:
Well, I don’t know about crocodiles in the Artic, but the left managed to convince me and get me quite exercised about Peak Oil. We’re running out! And fast!
I’m actually celebrating this calamity, as I am certain it will address Climate Change. If the oil is gone by 2050, then so is AGW. A major problem solving itself! How good is that?
Posted on September 22nd, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Mac Says:
That’s pretty good but it will be too late. H1N1 will have wiped out most of the population by that point.
Posted on September 22nd, 2009 at 7:57 pm
beentheredonethat Says:
Forget H1N1, what about Y2K with civilian airplanes falling from the skies, runaway trains crashing into stations full of commuters, sewage systems shutting down flooding cities with human waste, blah blah blah everybody panic. Oops sorry, that was another Chicken Little prediction that although countless billions were feverously spent preventing it, people got rich but nothing changed and it came and went pretty well exactly the same as it would have had nobody even known about it. So it will be with man-made global warming…man-made climate change…climate change (new names pending as the public wises up) and I suspect H1N1. Approximately 35,000 Americans die each year from complications from the common flu, 2500 daily from heart disease and 1450 daily from cancer. By comparison very few deaths can be attribued to the H1N1 virus. I went out and bought a new computer in 1999 for nothing. I certainly don’t intend getting this unreliable vacine ( I do get the common flu vacine because it actually works) for a possible non-seriously threatening virus. Neither do a reported 35-70% of UK and US medical personnel that were surveyed.
With all the warnings and preparations, dire predictions and hastily ordered vaccines, could the growing worry about H1N1 swine flu prove more disruptive than the actual outbreak?
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/forums/viewthread/10652/
Posted on September 23rd, 2009 at 1:23 pm