greenfyre

The seriousness of climate negotiations and the willingness to commit to actually doing something has decreased in reverse proportion to the gravity and urgency of the situation. Durban not merely needed to extend Kyoto, it needed to radically adjust the timetable to be in line with the scientific facts that we have learned since 1997. On that basis alone Durban was a staggering failure of epic proportions.

The politics of climate are very much like when a large group of people go out to dinner together. Some had only water, most only a soup and/or a salad, a few had a full meal, and a couple arrived late but then had an expensive desert and a brandy, and so on

At this point in the climate crisis getting "thrown out" should be the least of anyone's worries. That at least might make a point, which is more than most of them have accomplished to date. Given the situation with climate change, to cling to power or position based on the premise that one will accomplish something useful "later" is simply delusional folly.

Bear in mind they are making that claim about a supposedly "safe" 2oC rise in temperature, a window we have almost certainly already missed thanks to years of the same waffling and foot dragging. As these posts document, we now know that even 2oC is NOT safe and that further delay is absolutely suicidal. Bear in mind as well that they are making those claims while knowing these facts.

"The past five years have had the five smallest September ice extents showing that Arctic sea ice has not recovered from the large decrease observed in 2007." His idea is that a new state of the sea ice and ocean implies long-term problems especially but not exclusively for marine ecosystems."

New, extensive study of the paleoclimate record going back 50 million years by Hansen and others now shows that the two-degree target for global temperature rise "is a prescription for disaster," Hansen said here at a news conference during the American Geophysical Union meeting.

Perhaps the void between our panic stricken avoidance of being honest about the world we have created and the obvious moral choices we must make is driven, not so much by our desire for continued wanton indulgence, as it is by how much this reality reveals about who and what we are as individuals.

From the page: "As such it is in the political interest of every ruling party to delay action to past their current terms of office. That way all upheavals are blamed on the then government rather than those actually responsible (ie the current ruling parties and those of the last 2 decades, all of whom have been doing exactly the same thing)."