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2 comments from readers

Gideon Polya
19 November 2009 at 14:02

Well said: "If the politicians can only delay and equivocate, we must take matters into our own hands. "

Unfortunately Copenhagen is shaping up to be a climate policy disaster.

While top climate scientists demand a return of atmospheric CO2 from the current 390 ppm (and increasing at 2.5 ppm per year) to 300-350 ppm, world governments are all committed to increasing GHG pollution.

While according to UK Tyndall Centre scientists a 6-8% annual decrease in GHG is needed just to maintain 450 ppm CO2-equivalent (noting that the atmospheric GHG concentration is currently about 460 ppm CO2-e) (see: http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications/journal_papers/fulltex... .) the best on offer is a 2% annual reduction (UK, US) and world leading per capita GHG polluter Australia intends to increase its annual GHG pollution by about 3% pa.

While a conservative scientific assessment is of the need for 350 ppm CO2 by 2050, an appalling 118 out of 120 world MPs polled rejected this as infeasible at a recent Copenhagen Forum (see: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49010 )..

Worse still, the annual GHG pollution now appears to be 50% bigger than previously thought, the livestock GHG contribution is over 51% rather than 18% (as estimated some years ago by FAO; see: http://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf/Livestock%20and%20Climat... ) and major GHG polluters (notably the US and Australia) are committed to ignoring agricultural GHG pollution (i.e. to excluding any action on over 50% of the GHG pollution problem)..

Cowardly, anti-science, corporate lobbyist-informed politicians are betraying the planet. Bottom up action (sanctions, boycotts, climate accountability) is the only way to save the Humanity from a worsening climate genocide that is predicted, from the estimates of Dr James Lovelock FRS, to kill about 10 billion people this century (see "Man-made global warming Is it too late to stop climate catastrophe?": http://mwcnews.net/content/view/34410/42/ ).

writeon
19 November 2009 at 21:37

Bottom up action, by a population increasinglyaware of the disasterous and terrible course we are on as a civilzation, is, realistically, our only hope for systemic change. However, 'climate radicalization' is already seen as a coming threat by our rulers, a direct challenge to their interests, power, wealth, and control. The line between 'bottom up action' and 'eco terrorism', as defined by the corporate state, is fluid and will be stamped down on hard in the future.

In practical terms, the big problem, is how on earth we get the rich countries to consume and pollute less than they do now, when they are on a path towards even more over-consumption of the world's finite resources. A major stumbling-block is the entrenched corruption, brutal conservatism, and subservience to corporate interests, of the US Congress. Getting them to vote for an international treaty with real teeth, which binds the US and reduces it's 'freedom' , is, I fear, an almost impossible task, without some kind of revolt by the American people akin to the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-war movement in the sixties.

Without massive preasure by activists, bottom up democracy if you like, Congress, which is controlled and financed by corporate business interests, will never pass any meaningful climate legislation.

It's not a question of the political will of individual politicians introducing reforms, that is, unfortunately, irrelevant. What really counts is the collective will of the people to force political leaders to change and act to stop runaway climatic disaster. Change is not going to come through the ballot box. That particular avenue is throughly compromised and under lock and key, in a word - controlled - from the top down.

It's not as if we don't have the resources to adapt, reform and change, we do. We could, in theory, divert all the world's grossly wasteful military expenditure towards mitigating climate change, only we can't, because we'd all be cut down in the attempt.