Wednesday, December 02, 2015

COP 21: The Stupid and the Damned

“When I reflect on the pompous titles bestowed on unworthy men, I feel an indignity that instructs me to despise absurdity.” Thomas Paine

World leaders meet in Paris at COP-21 to see if rich nations and poor nations, large nations and small nations, can reach agreement to mitigate the effects of climate change. The stakes are very high.

Speeches galore on the opening day, calls for action, and dire warnings about the dangers of inaction; Barack Obama makes a speech full of words that soar like falcons but in the end amount to little more than the twittering of finches. Obama’s fellow leaders know that he can’t push climate legislation through a Republican-controlled US Congress chock full of rabid climate change deniers. While the world fries in some areas, and floods in others, while the air in many parts of China is hazardous, the deniers claim that the science of global warming is still up for debate.  

Why does the US spawn so many stupid politicians? This country boasts some of the finest universities in the world, our technological know-how is astonishing, our ability to measure and predict is unprecedented, and yet many American politicians steadfastly dispute the reality of climate change; they ignore the evidence at their feet and right above their heads; and as for expecting them to connect the dots between climate change and political unrest, terrorism, and refugees, forget it, they never will. They are blinded by greed for money, power, influence, and prestige.

COP-21 has only a slender chance of producing an agreement binding on all nations. When all the talking is through, money will win out as it almost always does. The big polluters, who have phalanxes of lawyers and lobbyists and PR flacks to do their bidding, will insist on incremental foot-dragging to allow industry time to transition. But when it comes to the climate on which we all depend, time is the one resource we don’t have.

The people out in the streets of Paris, and those around the world, are miles ahead of their political leaders because they know that the weight of climate change will fall disproportionately on them.


The poor and downtrodden always take the blunt end of the club in the gut.

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