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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Dec-2009
Climate change conference winds down with search for villains

Web Log - December, 2009

Climate change conference winds down with search for villains

After eight years of blaming Bush, the world may blame China this time.

The week at Copenhagen has been an incredible spectacle, with everyone looking to the US and Europe to provide money to everyone else. There are 130 "developing countries" who are demanding American technology and $200 billion per year, supposedly to help them implement global warming technologies, but always with the implication that the developed nations owe "reparations" to the developing nations because we've been so evil in emitting carbon. And of course they want this money with absolutely no strings attached.

What's funny about this is that almost no one believes that these developing countries will spend this money on global warming. Imagine giving a few billion dollars to the likes of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, the guy who regularly starves and slaughters his own people, especially those of the ethnic tribes other than his own.

Probably the darkest humor of the week was over the question of China receiving a chunk of that $200 billion, since they're a "developing country." Presumably, we would borrow the money from China and pay it back to them to do global warming technology. The suggestion that the US has to fund China has angered the US negotiators. Supposedly, the Chinese have said in back channels that they wouldn't accept US money even if it was offered, but they don't want to say so publicly because that would jeopardize their status as a "developing country."

The Copenhagen conference is a microcosm of all the dysfunction in the world today. In Washington we have a proposed health care bill that's economic insanity, and in Copenhagen we have a climate change conference that's an absurd and loony money grab. We should be watching these things on the Cartoon Network, rather than on CNN and Fox News.

The Copenhagen conference has gone from one chaotic disaster to another. There were arguments about money, and arguments about who will and will not be required to reduce carbon emissions. Things got so bad that the President of the Copenhagen Summit, Danish minister Connie Hedegaard, resigned in disgust.

There has been only one question left: Who's going to be blamed?

Western leaders have been scrambling to cover their asses. In the face of one chaotic disaster after another in Copenhagen, Gordon Brown and Barack Obama have been expressing confidence that an agreement will be signed before the conference ends. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that it will be catastrophic if there's no agreement.

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President George Bush has been blamed for the failure of the Kyoto agreement of 1997. That agreement was sponsored by then-VP Al Gore, but the agreement was rejected in the US Senate by a vote of 97 to 0 -- i.e., unanimously. The should mean that Bill Clinton and Al Gore should be blamed for the failure of the Kyoto agreement, but what's happened instead is that President Bush was blamed.

If George Bush were still President, then he would be burned in effigy around the world for the failure of the Copenhagen conference. Barack Obama can't be blamed, because he's a member of the élite. If a Republican wins the White House in 2012, then that person will be blamed for the failure of the Copenhagen conference. But who will be blamed in the meantime?

My guess is that it will be China:

China is now ahead of the U.S. as the world's biggest polluter. They point out that they're still behind the U.S. on a per capita basis, but they're still the biggest polluter in total. So without strict environmental controls in China, any agreement would be a waste of time.

China is arguably the richest country in the world, with the U.S. owing some $2 trillion in debt to China. They've spent huge amounts of money on military weaponry, and have indicated that they're preparing for war with the U.S. (See "Communist China celebrates its 60th anniversary with bizarre military parade.") And yet, China insists on being recognized as a weak "developing nation," a claim that's less and less credible.

As a "developing nation," China refuses to agree to any mandatory limits on carbon emissions, though they demand that the US and Europe to agree to very harsh limits on carbon emissions. This makes any possible agreement completely meaningless.

Every party nation to any proposed climate change agreement has to agree to have their carbon emissions monitored by international inspectors, but China is refusing to permit any such inspections.

None of this is new. These disagreements have been well known for weeks, if not months, and yet the politicians keep play-acting, as if what they're doing makes any sense whatsoever, each hoping that the other guy will get the blame.

It's worth repeating a point that I've made many times before. The survivors of World War II were united in their desire to prevent any such war from ever occurring again. They created the United Nations, World Health Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation (Green Revolution), and other international organizations not only to prevent a new world war, but also to end poverty and starvation and to improve health. Those organizations are all failing now, as the generations of WW II survivors disappear.

Even worse, the current generations of Boomers and Gen-Xers are incapable of accomplishing anything except to argue. The insanity and dysfunction of national and world political leaders is increasingly being reflected in polls. President Obama's approval rating has been in free fall.

This week, a new WSJ/NBC poll finds that 41% of Americans have a positive opinion about the "Tea Party movement," compared to 35% for the Democratic party, and 28% for the Republican party.

A new Pew Research poll shows that Americans are moving rapidly to the right on a variety of issues, including gun control, abortion rights, and global warming.

What we're seeing is something that I'm sure I'll be writing about a lot in the new year: A major political realignment is in the offing. This is something that happened in America's last two Crisis eras -- the Civil War era and the World War II era, and it's happening again today.

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the Climate Change thread of the Generational Dynamics forum.) (18-Dec-2009) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Dec-2009 Climate change conference winds down with search for villains

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Dec-2009
Climate change conference winds down with search for villains