19 December 2009

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen...

To be honest, the expectations of Copenhagen were always impossibly inflated. But there has to be hope.

US President Barack Obama offered hope of several kinds, when elected, and many more which he did not offer were hung around him unasked.

The end of Copenhagen does for both sets of hopes. A target of limiting global temperature rise to 2° Celsius isn't sufficient, and we now know it isn't going to happen either: it has been left to founder in a vat of fudge. And the manner in which Obama announced limited agreement to this fudge had all the hallmarks of US rule by fiat which his election had brought hopes of ending.

The message from my generation for new arrivals like Quinn Wilder Perkins is that all pretence is off: today will bequeath to their tomorrow a world in which growing populations fight for decreasing land, food and water. We could make it different if we really wanted to; but we don't care enough.

1 comment:

Dr. C said...

Yes. Sadly. I will admit that a year ago November I had allowed myself a modicum of "hope." (I think this word, which might be the secret blogger word of the Obama Administration, will come back to haunt us over and over again. I can see all of Africa rising up and shouting it at us.) In a way, the insane bickering over health care in our Congress is symptomatic of what is happening. And, as you might know, the bad guys won. A health care "insurance" company will be allowed to keep 20% of all premiums. That they reduced it from 30%, the average now, was considered a victory. (Our Medicare system, government insured healthcare for the "elderly," has a 1% "medical loss ration.") What I guess I am saying is that a large number of us over here consider the System broken. That issues such as health care and the environment get short shrift because of corporate greed is no news. That this is supported by a man who sold us "Hope" dashes that virtue on the rocks. God help us.