Green is the new red (1)

The decade just past marked the transition from red into green. It was the decade in which environmentalism replaced socialism as the authoritarians’ and the busybodies’ ideology of choice.

Why are so few environmentalists truly unhappy about the failure at Copenhagen? In the run-up to this month’s Earth summit in the Danish capital, many “greens” were warning that if the world’s leaders failed to reach a comprehensive pact to control climate change our planet was doomed within the century. In the summer, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon insisted “we have four months to save the planet.”

But nothing that will save the planet came out of the UN eco-fest.

Yes, world leaders kinda, sorta agreed to limit global average temperature rise to two degrees Celsius over the next 100 years (as if they had some magical powers to achieve that end). But that is a political goal, not a scientific one. No formula has been worked out detailing what concentration of carbon dioxide in the air will keep temps from rising by more than two degrees. And even if there were such a calculation, it wouldn’t matter: Leaders at the summit made no firm commitments to keep their countries’ CO2 emissions to amounts within scientifically verifiable limits.

Given the absence of such commitments, you would think environmental ists like Al Gore would be in full hand-wringing, caterwauling dudgeon since the collapse at Copenhagen. Just weeks ago they were claiming we would die out as a species if no deep, binding emission cuts were agreed. None were. Yet, while not fully happy, eco-activists have not been screaming at world leaders over their unwillingness to accept meaningful emissions caps. Instead, the greenies have been doing their best to put a sunny face on the results.

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Updates:

1:41 pm EST, December 30th, 2009 — Meet the ultimate green family