Copenhagen - a Predictable Failure
The predictable failure of the Copenhagen conference to produce an agreement on international action to slow or stop global warming, supports what I argued in an earlier post – global warming cannot be stopped. There is too much momentum behind the human component of its cause, and we lack the economic and political systems, and the international institutions, to get effective international action.
I argued in that earlier post that what we can do, and must do, is face global warming and cope with its effects.
To this end, we need a large conference of scientists and policy-makers to come up with the best possible prediction as to how much warming will occur, and all the effects of this. What small low-lying nations will diminish or vanish? Which cities world-wide will be affected, and how much? Which regions will become wetter, which drier? How will the distribution and type of forest cover, world-wide, be affected? How will the type and location of food and other crops need to be changed? Who should be doing what? Australia, for instance, could set aside territory, comparable in size and quality, to accommodate the populations of small nations that might disappear beneath the waves.
This is what the Copenhagen conference should have been doing. Instead we had a big junket for legions of politicians and bureaucrats, lots of grandstanding and empty boiler-plate speeches, demonstrators wearing masks and fighting the police, and a big carbon footprint stomping over all.
The conference we should have, could actually be convened largely over the internet. There is no need for people to fly into some place on private jets, trailing a comet’s tail of functionaries in limousines, and causing a costly security headache. But however we do it, we need to get on with it.
Related posts:
- Stopping Global Warming - Better Communication Needed In Australia the federal government is trying to implement an Emissions Trading Scheme to combat global warming. Opponents of this scheme argue that it will cost jobs. Surely the whole point of trying to slow...
- Global Warming - A Red Herring? The Australian Government has recently announced revised, reduced targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. There has been some objection to this but it should not really be surprising. Governments around the world have...
