Game Change for Climate Change
Eventually people begin to see through ruses, scams, deceptions and attempted bamboozlements. The latest canard to succumb is Climate Change, which, until recently had been known as Global Warming. However, when doubts about warming trends overwhelmed the claims from the Global Warming camp, the leaders of the Global Warming movement took the strategic step of renaming to problem with a neutral term for which there is no disproving evidence.
Clever? Global Warming? Can't be proved. Climate Change? Well, the climate is always changing, is it not? Anyway, there are plenty of people who feel that a little increase in global temperatures might increase agricultural output, which would come as good news for nations with too little food. Higher temperatures mean more moisture is absorbed by the atmosphere. That means more rain will fall, and falling rain is the chief course of fresh water for billions of people.
More fresh water sounds like good news -- for everyone, except people determined to acquire power by using the usual strategy of creating fear about the arrival of a distant, powerful, approaching, imaginary force. Works most of the time.
UN abandons climate change deadline
The timetable to reach a global deal to tackle climate change lay in tatters on Wednesday after the United Nations waived the first deadline of the process laid out at last month’s fractious Copenhagen summit.
Nations agreed then to declare their emissions reduction targets by the end of this month. Developed countries would state their intended cuts by 2020: developing countries would outline how they would curb emissions growth.
But Yvo de Boer, the UN’s senior climate change official, admitted the deadline had in effect been shelved.
“By [the end of] January, countries will have the opportunity to . . . indicate if they want to be associated with the accord,” he said. “[Governments could] indicate by the deadline, or they can also indicate later.”
“You could describe it as a soft deadline,” Mr de Boer said. “There is nothing deadly about it. If [countries] fail to meet it, they can still associate with the Copenhagen accord after.”
Countries pushing for a new legally binding treaty on climate change will be disappointed, as The waiving of the deadline sets a bad precedent for efforts to finalise a deal this year. The next scheduled meeting is not until late May, in Germany, with another in late November, in Mexico but many officials say more will be needed.
India, China, Brazil and South Africa, which meet this weekend, are likely to insist on deep cuts from developed nations but offer few concessions of their own.
The result of Tuesday’s Massachusetts senatorial election, which took away Barack Obama’s super-majority in the Senate, is likely to push climate change further down the US agenda. It was the latest in a series of setbacks that have caused efforts to push a cap-and-trade bill through the Senate to grind to a halt, making it harder for the White House to participate meaningfully in global climate negotiations.
Instead, the administration has been pressing ahead with steps to limit the US’s carbon emissions through regulation. The Environmental Protection Agency has unveiled new draft rules that would sharply tighten regulations on smog-building pollutants, or ground-level ozone, and has cracked down on greenhouse gas emissions by ruling that carbon dioxide and five other gases pose a danger to health.
Clever? Global Warming? Can't be proved. Climate Change? Well, the climate is always changing, is it not? Anyway, there are plenty of people who feel that a little increase in global temperatures might increase agricultural output, which would come as good news for nations with too little food. Higher temperatures mean more moisture is absorbed by the atmosphere. That means more rain will fall, and falling rain is the chief course of fresh water for billions of people.
More fresh water sounds like good news -- for everyone, except people determined to acquire power by using the usual strategy of creating fear about the arrival of a distant, powerful, approaching, imaginary force. Works most of the time.
UN abandons climate change deadline
The timetable to reach a global deal to tackle climate change lay in tatters on Wednesday after the United Nations waived the first deadline of the process laid out at last month’s fractious Copenhagen summit.
Nations agreed then to declare their emissions reduction targets by the end of this month. Developed countries would state their intended cuts by 2020: developing countries would outline how they would curb emissions growth.
But Yvo de Boer, the UN’s senior climate change official, admitted the deadline had in effect been shelved.
“By [the end of] January, countries will have the opportunity to . . . indicate if they want to be associated with the accord,” he said. “[Governments could] indicate by the deadline, or they can also indicate later.”
“You could describe it as a soft deadline,” Mr de Boer said. “There is nothing deadly about it. If [countries] fail to meet it, they can still associate with the Copenhagen accord after.”
Countries pushing for a new legally binding treaty on climate change will be disappointed, as The waiving of the deadline sets a bad precedent for efforts to finalise a deal this year. The next scheduled meeting is not until late May, in Germany, with another in late November, in Mexico but many officials say more will be needed.
India, China, Brazil and South Africa, which meet this weekend, are likely to insist on deep cuts from developed nations but offer few concessions of their own.
The result of Tuesday’s Massachusetts senatorial election, which took away Barack Obama’s super-majority in the Senate, is likely to push climate change further down the US agenda. It was the latest in a series of setbacks that have caused efforts to push a cap-and-trade bill through the Senate to grind to a halt, making it harder for the White House to participate meaningfully in global climate negotiations.
Instead, the administration has been pressing ahead with steps to limit the US’s carbon emissions through regulation. The Environmental Protection Agency has unveiled new draft rules that would sharply tighten regulations on smog-building pollutants, or ground-level ozone, and has cracked down on greenhouse gas emissions by ruling that carbon dioxide and five other gases pose a danger to health.
posted by no_slappz at 8:57 AM
1 Comments:
Is that a new game show?
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