[Sosfbay-discuss] UN Climate Change Conference-Feinsteinon finalnegotiations

[Tian Harter]

Wes Rolley wrote:
> Tian Harter wrote:
>> According to the site in the URL at the end of that video, they did 
>> reach some sort of agreement in the end:
>>
>> http://unfccc.int/2860.php
>>   
> Everyone will call this a victory, but if it is, it is a very hollow 
> one.  It was an agreement to continue talking for another two year and 
> to reach some sort of actionable plan before 2010,.

To my way of thinking they are waiting for a story to come along that 
makes everybody happy. Contrast that with the grass roots activists in 
Palo Alto. I was at a meeting led by one of them who said "we don't have 
time to wait for an agreement from Washington or Sacramento. We need to 
be developing change here." That's still the attitude that makes sense 
to me.

Maybe the delegates are just looking forward to another trip to some 
exotic place where the next round of negotiations. I would if I was from 
some cold miserable place and the negotiations were somewhere like Bali.

> 
> That is two years in which we will have continued to build up the 
> surplus of Green House Gases.
> That is two years in which  US Government can swathe it's inaction and 
> play Alphonse / Gaston with China.
> That is two years in which the lack of American Action will increase the 
> enmity that we have engendered throughout the world.

Don't forget, if we get our leadership from people preaching the gospel 
of stop shopping/driving/consuming instead of the corporate icons we 
will be part of the solution instead of mere consumer drones. As the old 
saying goes, "the revolution will not be televised!"

> That is two years in which even a change in Administration, e.g. to a 
> Clinton Compromiser or an Obama Dreamer, will continue to tringulate 
> deals that allow multi-national corporations to continue screwing the 
> planet or to move their operations to countries whose government 
> regulators are more easily bribed.

Yabut the Bill of Rights only goes to our national border. Everything 
that happens offshore (except in Hawaii) is governed by someone elses 
law. Our challenge is to make green values a better tool for the rest of 
the world than corporate capitalism. When I think of all the "race to 
the bottom" stories I've heard it can't be that hard.

> 
> I would suggest that everyone browse through the blog entries that 
> Andrew Revikin has called for on his Dot Earth blog at the NY Times.  
> Voices on Bali and Beyond 
> <http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/voices-on-bali-and-beyond/> 
> is a collection of comments from people who were actually there.  Here 
> is a quote from the first responder, Dr. Thomas J. Goreau, the delegate 
> from Jamaica, and representative of a Coalition of Caribbean nations:  
> His target was the EU for its failure to stand up to the US stalling 
> tactics.

The only problem is that I don't visit websites where the general public 
is invited. They require you to accept cookies, which I don't. They also
require you to register, which I don't want to do. I'm hoping that if 
there is something really important there someone will share it around.

> 
>> This amounts to a real betrayal of all those who counted on the EU to 
>> do the right thing, and amounts to a *capital crime against the 
>> environment,* because millions will die as the result of unchecked 
>> global warming.
> If there is a single issue that the Green Party needs to be very clear 
> about, it is the one of Climate Change. What we do now, not what we 
> begin to do in 2010 will have an effect on:
> - agricultural policy a swarming weather makes major changes to what can 
> be grown where and how much food might each country have to import or be 
> able to export as a result.
> - trade policies as competition for declining reserves of food and 
> water, the basic essentials of life, make countries increasingly 
> protectionist.
> - energy policy unless we take aggressive steps to get off of fossil fuels.
> - security as increased frustration with US arrogance sends an 
> increasing flow of people towards Al Qaeda or other organizations.
> - health care as diseases once considered tropical become increasingly 
> prevalent in the more highly populated, currently temperate zones.
> 
> Have we come so far from our roots as a party that we are not the 
> leaders in speaking out? *
> *
> 
I'm doing what I can, and I see you are to. :-)

-- 
Tian
http://tian.greens.org
I came home from SVBC's party with a Fat Tire Beer flat tire repair kit
for my bicycle, a volunteer mug, and some really groovy reflective tape.