Copenhagen: Obama Better Go Back
When Obama arrives in Copenhagen tomorrow to support Chicago's Olympic bid, he will be showing the world that he is willing to schlep to Scandinavia for an event he considers important. The big question now is: will he do it again on December 7, when Copenhagen plays host to the United Nations summit on climate change, the highest-stakes environmental negotiations in history?
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has already pledged to be there, characterizing the summit as a last chance to pull the planet back from the brink. "I will go to Copenhagen to conclude the deal," Brown told the UN General Assembly. "This is too important an agreement -- for the global economy, and for the future of every nation represented here -- to leave to our official negotiators. So I urge my fellow leaders to commit themselves to going to Copenhagen too."
No word so far on whether Obama will heed the call (remember that George Bush Sr. went to the Rio Earth Summit...). Considering the Obama administration's paltry proposals on emissions cuts, and the total absence of a U.S. plan to help developing countries meet the massive costs associated with a climate crisis they did not create (ask the residents of flooded-out Manila), it's not surprising that the president might want to avoid what promises to be a angry showdown in Copenhagen. Already U.S. negotiators are trying to lower expectations for what the summit can accomplish, an ominous sign.
One thing is certain: if Obama skips Copenhagen in December, after making time to go there to promote the Olympics in October, he will be saying something chilling about his administration's commitment to battling global warming. Now is the time to tell Obama: you'd better go back to Copenhagen.
Joe Scarborough: Thank You, Mr. President
Count me as one conservative who is disappointed that President Obama's hometown will not be hosting the 2016 Olympic Games.
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Today's New York Times did an article about this.
Seems that Obama does not have the US Government and US Industry behind him to support his intentions in Copenhagen
Expectations for Copenhagen Conference are declining.
View our illustration of this story on our blog, Line by Line, which features an artist's drawing for a news story each day.
http://www.blog.imagethink.net/line-by-line/2009/11/16/obama-hobbled-in-fight-against-global-warming.html
Oh, Milty, in different times you would have been arguing against Copernicus. There have always been angry people who cannot deal with the implications of fact and science. And they always lose and become the marginalized nuts living on the edge of society.
That's fine. Except in this case, the stakes are too high. And there's a lot of powerful corporate greed involved and a lot of old rich men who are pretty sure they'll be gone by the time the consequences come to bear.
You are just wrong. All the world's climatologists agree and if you are seriously proposing that the world's climatologists evolved into some secret liberal political society overnight, then you are deluded. Why don't you google "becoming a climatologist" and find out what they typically study and do and who they typically work for. There is no shadow industry that is going to make buckets of money predicting and documenting climate change.
"There is no shadow industry that is going to make buckets of money predicting and documenting climate change."
Then where did the $50 Billion go?
The remark about Copernicus is ironic. Copernicus developed the theory that our galaxy is heliocentric. Galileo, who proved Copernicus's theory, suffered terrible opposition and suppression because the Church could not accept his new ideas. They contradicted the day's accepted science and established theology.
The post contends, falsely, "All the world's climatologists agree..." about global warming. All those who are skeptics of the global warming hypothesis are "just wrong." This sounds like the doubters of Copernicus and the tormentors of Galileo. Skeptics are wrong, 'because we say so.'
Pioneering scientists who challenge accepted dogma are often criticized by members of the scientific 'establishment.' Example: Barry Marshall and Robin Warren who proved that stomach ulcers are caused by a bacterium, rather than by stress and stomach acid, the consensus medical opinion at the time. The medical established condemned them. But they eventually won the 2005 Nobel Prize for Medicine. The Committee said they "with tenacity and a prepared mind challenged prevailing dogmas."
Warmists lack a "prepared mind" when it comes to agw study. They refuse to consider, evaluate, examine, study or even think about scientific findings of scientists who 'challenge prevailing dogmas."
Amazing to see people who deny climate change science citing Copernicus and Gallileo to support the view that "scientists" who currently deny the empirical evidence that carbon emissions causze climate changes that are detrimental to long term planetary survival, are bucking entrenched scientific orthodoxy (comparable to the acts of those giants). In fact, they did not challenge the "scientific experts" at the time, or a majority of scientists -- they were pressing for recognition of scientific method (e.g., empirical proof, unbiased observation, letting the experiment lead to the answer, testing hypotheses, etc.) in the face of contrary religious dogma, at a time when the Church could excommunicate, imprison and/or execute heretics. These giants propounded scientific theories in the face of charges of heresy that could have ruined their lives. By contrast, the pseudo-scientists challenging the 98%of scientists who accept climate change science as a reality, are pursuing the economic objectives of corporate interest holders who compensate them for their contribution to the propoganda effort. They risk nothing, except reputations they don't have, so that Fox News and hte Limbaugh/Beck/Dobbs Axis can claim that there are respected scientists who have made convincing challenges to climate science (or have proven it to be inaccurate) -- when nothing could be further from the truth. PT Barnum nailed it - there's a sucker is born every minute -- in the USA, most of them support their right wing and corporate overlords zealously.
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Warmists lack a "prepared mind" when it comes to agw study. They refuse to consider, evaluate, examine, study or even think about scientific findings of scientists who 'challenge prevailing dogmas."
/quote
No, in fact, the "work" of deniers like Lindzen and Alan Carlin are taken apart meticulously, one false assertion at a time, BEFORE being declared discredited.
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I thought I understood from the news coverage that he was going back. I cannot imagine, even in this do -nothing and avoid-change -at -all -costs administration that they would not see the tone deafness of not going.
the question is whether they will go with a bill passed and in hand. and that does not look good. Carol Browner is already saying it cant be done.
That's the American/Obama spriit, Ms Browner! Give up before the battle has been joined. G-dknowswe cannot defeat the oldwhitemen in the Senate!
I thought I understood from the news coverage that he was going back. I cannot imagine, even in this do -nothing and avoid-change -at -all -costs administraation that they would not see the tone deafness of not going.
the question is whether they will go with a bill passed and in hand. and that does not look good. Carol Browner is already saying it cant be done.
That's the American/Obama spriit, Ms Browner! Give up before the battle has been joined. Godknowswe cannot defeat the oldwhitemen in the Senate!
Don't go, I cannot stand another round of fresh embarassments for our Country.
Good point. Maybe Obama should stay very very quiet for the next 3 years.
????? (reality check needed!)
Embarrassment was Bush Jr. going to the Olympics and acting like nothing was wrong in the world despite that we were involved in the war in Iraq and still had no real reason why we were there. Embarrassment was the world watching us as a country, sit by while our own citizens died because of the ineptitude of our elected officials. Embarrassment is is talking about being the greatest free country in the world and then taking a pair of administrative scissors to the Constitution. Embarrassment was, despite the poor job Bush Jr. had done in the first term, we succumbed to fear and division and let him back in for a second term. Embarrassment is that one of the greatest economies in the world got to the position where we are now despite the statements that everything was fundamentally sound. Losing a bid to the Olympics is not embarrassing; it's life. Hanging a Mission Accomplished banner and then pretending that the war is over, although six years later it's still going, and continuing to funnel billions of dollars that didn't show up on the books and ran the country further into debt ... now that's embarrassing.
Not getting the Olympics is not an embarrassment. We're in good company--every country in the world but one didn't get the Olympics. Your precious little hatriots (you know, the ones telling you that Obama is an embarrassment) gloating over America's loss like it was their own personal victory? That's a national embarrassment.
if obama is our champion and hero we are in serious trouble. he is kind of like IKEA furniture -
it looks really good in the store, but you buy it and take it home, then, finally realize that you
have to put it together yourself. bad enough. yet, upon closer inspection, you do not have the
tools that are required, they did not come with the package, and you are legally prohibited from
obtaining them in any fashion.
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naomi, you and i both know that even IF he goes that he most likely will not
even SAY anything meaningful, much less commit to do or actually do anything
that will affect his corporate bosses profit margins !!
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as you have discussed, even after Katrina, many policymakers in the US still do not
choose to address Global Warming, they slept thru the alarm clock, then they slept
thru the snooze button, now they have just said forget it, its too late !?
---
the capitalists ( particularly oil ) would rather pay people to not work, than to risk losing their stranglehold on the population that might loosen if they allowed people to work in an arrangement
involving the conversion of SUV factories into faciliites that would produce the means to provide
mass transportation ( low or high speed rail, solar collectors, ... ) in an employee owned and employee managed scenario.
---
could you do a better job screened? Do you really believe that any president can just snap his or her fingers and all their campaign promises will materialize?
You are right in that there is tough opposition and that the powers that be, that operate covertly, under the public radar will fight tooth and nail to preserve their ill-gotten gains...
but to classify Obama as furniture that you have to put together yourself...well...I disagree.
But democracy does imply that you and I are the government...and in that respect...government in general is the furniture and you and I are always the assemblers.
How on earth are you legally prohibited from buying a screwdriver and assembling your Ikea piece? Just wondering.
People who don't realize until they get home that there's not a fully-assembled desk in that three-inch deep box don't live in the world you and I do.
Katrina = global warming! I love it. LOL
The heat trapped on Earth by greenhouse gases stays in the oceans especially, because of water's high specific heat. In turn, high ocean temperatures cause more severe and more frequent tropical storms. So in a sense, yes, "Katrina = global warming"
There's nothing funny about it.
I'm impressed. That Ikea analogy was among the worst I can remember. Absurd in every dimension.
Nothing substantive will happen at the Copenhagen climate talks, unfortunately. Too many competing interests, not enough resolve.
An Obama trip for the climate would have the same affect his trip for the Olympics had - nil.
Some things are bigger even than Obama.
We have enough people saying 'He better do this, he better do that.' 'Better go back' sounds like the opening line of a right-winger. We could have had more people saying Bush 'better do this.' Where were those people while all the wars were raging in the Middle East?
"Were" raging?
Ms. Klein, He's no fool he'll be there.....
You really need to go a lot deeper than the junk science presented by Al Gore.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI&feature=channel
Calinative...Thanks. Great vdeo. May I return the favor. Article by physicist Freeman Dyson.
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dysonf07/dysonf07_index.html
Nice post. Thanks.
Yeah, lets just throw another tire on the fire and let the planet burn much like it has been in Australia and Los Angeles. What do we have to lose?
That was an interesting article, thanks for the link. I have a lot of respect for Freeman Dyson, he is a great scientist.
Being a contrarian in the science world is nothing new. There were Scientists that were very contrarian to the theories of Galileo, Newton and Einstein. That didn't make their methods correct or their views correct either.
The arctic ocean is melting.
Here's a time-lapse video.
AGW is the biggest fraud in the history of mankind. THAT is the 'inconvenient truth'. All of these gloom and doom predictions are based on computer modeling that has so many holes in it that swiss cheese is jealous. Please note the subtle change from 'global warming' to 'climate change'. Why? Because the cold hard data being collected is not confirming the models prediction of warming. Actual cooling trend over the last 10 years. Oops!
CO2 makes up 0.038 percent of the atmosphere and human activity contrbutes to 4% of that. IPCC goal is to cut the 4% by 50% by 2050 in order to cap the global mean temp. increase at 3.4 degees. Are you kidding! To believe this nonsense is pure folly.
The sun, oceans and water vapor(clouds) are the drivers of climate. We are just along for the ride.
Models that exhibit a "simple linear relationship" between dependent and independent variables do not also have "so many holes in it that swiss cheese is jealous."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090610154453.htm
And before that, the models have been "good" for quite some time.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080402100001.htm
The fact that milty doesn't understand how "only" 350ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a high upper limit on the survival of the majority of the human species doesn't mean it isn't so. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and legitimate scientists have known it is beyond a shadow of a doubt since the 1950s.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
Combustion of petroleum and coal releases carbon dioxide. Now, less of the Sun's heat is able to leave Earth's atmosphere as infrared radiation. So, milty, since the science proves it cannot be going back into space, and you say the heat is not staying on Earth, not making Earth warmer, will you please explain to everybody, where is all the heat going? Thousands of real climate scientists would LOVE to know!
Whatever heat you claim is being trapped by increased levels of CO2 have not resulted in an increase in temperature. While CO2 has increased, temperature has not as the modeling would predict. Actually a slight cooling trend, resulting in less heat to reflect. Once again, Reed, the current empiricle data does not support the predictions. How can they. The models woefully lack all the variables required to make these conclusions.
There is nothing unusual about our climate. CO2 and temps have been higher and lower in earths past and they will be in the future. To think that man is going to have an impact on climate by tweeking a little of this or that is the epitome of hubris. Not to mention the economic devastation. All due to a simple little computer model.
They found a linear relationship between CO2 and temperature. So what? A linear relationship means a simple correlation. That correlation is that temperature rise cause CO2 levels to rise. You are claiming they have an algorithmic relationship.
My avatar is a graph of temperature in the 20th century.
"While CO2 has increased, temperature has not as the modeling would predict."
It shows plainly that you're lying, milty.
maybe let your body temperature rise by about 4% - to pretend that you, me, or
ANY scientist know what the effects of humans interference in the eco balance
of the earth will be is naive, foolish, egotistical ...
very delicate, very delicate, very delicate
What a president can do is rearrange our national priorities so that spending is directed towards public health care options, preventing climate change, renewable energy products, etc. Congress needs to follow his lead and promote a progressive agenda.
Leaving life and death decisions up to a marketplace that is hopelessly focused on short term near sighted profits and the bottom line is foolish. Wall Street in its worshipers will take us all down unless we can make a louder noise.
am in total agreement with you.
See what you can do about the Senate.
In making your point you also point to a higher truth ... WE are this country. WE need to be involved beyond sitting on the couch like a Sunday morning QB and saying what the coach/team should have done. WE need to get into the game. Now you need good generals to win a war, but you also need a good army. Expecting Obama to do everything, as folks on both sides end up doing much of the time, is like sending a general into battle with an army. Doesn't matter how good he is, he won't take/hold much ground. It's time for US to lock and load and start getting behind our general.
Sorry ... just noticed that "sending a general into battle with an army" should have been "sending a general into battle withOUT an army."
I'm a real progressive when it comes to energy. That's why I'm in favor of using the might of our industrial economy to invent the clean green energy of tomorrow. We need to expand by orders of magnitude the amount of effort and incentives offered for developing cleaner nuclear power, commercial fusion energy and capitalizing on the free clean energy of space based solar which will require new space launch systems that are not dependent on old fahsioned cold war era ideas about balistic missiles being the only way. So, I'm not in favor of un-duely hobbling the very same economic engine that we have now and which has shown time and time again that it can do what we need it to do. We know the science already. What we need is the industrial might and supporting sense of direction from enlightened leadership and a truly scientifically confident and aware public. It's a tall order but you don't achieve the superabundance of the solar system by sitting on the curb as the prade passes you by, wringing ones hands and bemoaning about how terribly gnarly the knot in our shoelaces seems to be out of fear of falling. Let's cut and run to the smorgasboard of space energy and our own future when we can take the resource stress off of good old planet earth and let it become the amazing experiment in natural systems it is.
You see this is precisely why Rio should be given the games. Within a few decades it and many other coastal cities will be abandoned and under water.
Blah blah.
The sealevels are not rising. Ice floats on water and thus the Northpole melting does not rise sealevels. Moreover, the tundra is melting too, and everything built on the permafrost is sinking - 10metres and more - creating a huge hole in which all the extra water from Greenland's ice can easily be accomodated.
What everyone forgets is a look at the planet as a whole, which has a wobble, like a gyroscope. the wobble turned around the magnetic Pole in the '60's and now is wobbling next t the pole by 7 to 12 degrees. the weather and climate bands still circle the earth in their normal position. Hence the Poles are now in warmer regions and melt. At some point in time, the wobble will return to its original position around the Poles. That will be the moment everyone will scream that an ice age is upon us, with a similar panic reaction as today.
All the focus on CO2 is but a fragmentary look at the entire planet and thus far from scientific, as everyone in science should know. True science looks at ALL parameters, which approach is sorely lacking in all climate models, while the wobble is not even taken into account - glaring mistake, if you ask me.
"What everyone forgets..."
So you're the only one who knows about this secret wobble? If the poles are now in a warmer region, where has the cold region gone? Where are the new ice caps? You really believe that the rotation of the earth has changed so much since the 1960s that the poles are no longer the cold parts of the earth? Yes, the earth wobbles. No, it does not account for the melting ice caps. A (very) little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Americans are always behind the curve. We had to basically be shamed into joining WW I - too little too late, but we finally did fight. It took Pearl Harbor for the isolationists to be quieted and for us to join WWII. It took Sputnik to galvanize our space program. We're just now realizing what most of the rest of the world new about Iraq: we were bamboozled by false tales of WMD and 9/11 connections.
In most of those cases we were able to make a contribution and ameliorate the issue (except Iraq?). Will we be too late to help reverese the effects of GHG? Current science says, "maybe." We can only hope that there is some invention(s) out there just waiting for the right time, the right encouragement.
Maybe, Naomi, Copenhagen (and Obama's attendance) will be that impetus. And just maybe it won't be too late.
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