Want to know what’s going on in Copenhagen at the United Naitons Climate Change Conference? Want to participate? If you’re not already plugged in, the following links will get you started. And, knowing Kossacks, I’m sure there will be some additional links provided in the comment threads.
Here’s the daily program.
Virtual participation at this site.
Live streaming video when the forum is in session.
Here’s Common Dreams.
Here’s OneClimate.net.
Here’s Heat of the Moment: Dispatches from Copenhagen.
Here’s featured videos from the The Uptake.
Here’s EnviroNationCOP.
Here’s Current Green TV.
Here’s Climate Progress.
Here’s DeSmogBlog.
Here’s Grist.
For this coming weekend, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse and I have put together a Climate Change Reality blogathon that begins Saturday at 7 a.m. PST and runs until Sunday evening. The more than 20 participants will include leading climate scientists, such as Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, the vice chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Michael MacCracken, the chief scientist for Climate Change Programs with the Climate Institute in Washington D.C., Senator John Kerry and Senator Jeff Merkley, Daniel Kessler of Greenpeace, Carl Pope of the Sierra Club, Pete Altman of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Keith Schneider from the U.S. Climate Action Network, as well as 14 environmental bloggers who regularly post at Daily Kos.
A full schedule will be posted later this week.
In his diary today, The Cunctator gave us the skinny on Copenhagen Day Three: Tuvalu, Sarah Palin, And 'Crazed Hitler Youth': "At this morning's plenary session of the Copenhagen climate negotiations, the tiny island nation of Tuvalu called for strengthening the Kyoto Protocol to limit warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, rather than the current standard of 2 ° C. Their proposal to amend the Kyoto Protocol with a new, legally binding agreement to set a target of 350 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere fractured the session, as Tuvalu was supported by other small island states and poor nations in Africa, but was opposed by fifteen richer developing nations, including Saudi Arabia, China, and India."
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Green Diary Rescues appear on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. The diary rescue begins below in the jump. Inclusion of a particular diary does not necessarily indicate my agreement with it.
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ScottyUrb has posted the Overnight News Digest.
Sarah Palin came in for some criticism.
RenaRF turned you betcha’s "climategate" Op-Ed in the Washington Post inside-out in her Teh Stupid Speaks: "So back to Science Sarah. I believe we absolutely CAN say with assurance that man is dramatically affecting climate change (and just for the record - it's not the weather that's changing, Sarah - it's the climate that is changing, and that is causing the weather to change). But if I allow for some measure of skepticism, it's still safer to address man's impact on the global climate than bank on the idea that man is 100% NOT responsible."
UN Dispatcher also took the half-term governor of Alaska to task in Sorry, Sarah Palin. Copenhagen DOES Matter: "The climate negotiations were "in disarray" today after a leaked document revealed proposals for international guidelines that representatives of developing nations said put them at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the rich countries of the world. The document, known as the "Danish text" and obtained by the Guardian, is a draft text by the host Danish government that reveals fundamental differences between the wealthier and poorer nations of the world as to how the global community should tackle climate change."
And THE DIARY DISASTER also had harsh words on the subject in Sarah Palin Starts Writing about "Climategate"; A Bunch of Stupid Crap Ensues: "In a more reasonable world Sarah Palin would have been issued a restraining order keeping her from approaching any keyboard following her facebook outbursts."
blueness described the awful fate of the coral reefs in The Iceman Cometh: "Coral reefs are responsible for a third of the world’s marine biodiversity, are relied upon by more than 500 million people for food, income, and protection, and consist entirely of living creatures. A fifth of them are already dead. The world’s richest coral reef, located off Indonesia and five other Southeast Asian nations, and containing three-quarters of the world’s coral species, is 40% gone, and is expected to entirely disappear by the end of the century. ‘Unless something very remarkable happens during December's climate talks,’ says Dr. Alex Rogers of London’s Institute of Zoology, ‘the world’s reefs will be reduced to slime-covered rubble by 2050.’"
Cartoon Messiah reported that War and Climate Change (GWoT fuels AGW): "The world's largest single polluter is the U.S. Department of Defense. The United States has 11 million Anti-Personnel Landmines stockpiled, the third largest mine arsenal in the world, and refuses to halt production. U.S.-made and supplied APLs have been found in 32 countries, including Afghanistan. In the last 15 years, the U.S. has used cluster bombs in civilian populated areas of the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. The cluster bombs the U.S. dropped 40 years ago in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam are still killing people today. A study released in October documented the enhanced cancer risk to Baby Boomers from fallout from nuclear testing in the 1950s and 60s."
He was also less than delighted over the latest round of Drill Baby Drill: Interior Gives Thumbs-Up to Drilling in Alaska: "In an ironic twist of news during the initial days of the Copenhagen Climate talks, the U.S. Department of Interior will allow Shell Oil to drill three exploratory wells in Northern Alaska. The area has been the subject of much political controversy, and any move to drill there is naturally opposed by Environmentalists."
RLMiller pointed out that Republicans Are Undermining Obama Past the Water's Edge: ""Politics stops at the water's edge." Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI) is credited with the phrase circa 1947, although it originated with Daniel Webster: Even our party divisions, acrimonious as they are, cease at the water’s edge. They are lost in attachment to the national character, on the element where that character is made respectable. In the Age of Obama, when the President is routinely compared to Hitler, that notion seems more and more quaint. Just when one thinks that Republicans can't possibly go any lower...hey! look down there! there they are, in the Ninth Circle! Even Sarah Palin, in calling for President Obama to boycott Copenhagen, doesn't venture as far as Representatives Barton, Blackburn, Issa, and Sensenbrenner and Senators Barrasso and Inhofe. They'll cross the Atlantic to ally themselves with foreign interests and against President Obama."
boatsie wrote about the rebel conference in Denmark in her Klimaforum 09, COP15's True Stars: "Welcome to Klimaforum09, the 'alternative'COP15 conference ‘Bottom up Meeting, Windows of Hope,’ running concurrently throughout the next two weeks in Copenhagen's Christiania (aka Freetown) commune-style neighborhood, with 200 workshops, 70 exhibitions, films, theatre, and musical events AND guest speakers including Vandana Shiva, George Monbiot, Bill McKibben, Tim Jackson, Wangari Maathai and Naomi Klein. "At Klimaforum09 we find the real people taking real action," said Nnimmo Bassy, Head of Friends of Earth International. "Polluters must be hold accountable and policy makers must start listening to the people."
abarefootboy did some {{ Live Blogging }} Copenhagen's United Nations COP 15 Climate Change Conference: "Hopenhagen .. Where fellow human beings lean their fragile shoulder against greed's gaseous wheel in an heroic effort to slow the dull behemoth's cruel advance. Should we not, at the very least be 'virtually' present .. to 'bare' witness our common efforts ? Live blogging is a treasure gift of this community when moments of import, emerge through the sleepy mist of our Collective Unconscious."
pontechango discussed Going Friedman on Climate: "Thomas Friedman has apparently been reading Ron Suskind lately, as he reveals in his latest op-ed at the NY Times, Going Cheney on Climate. Unfortunately for his readership, Friedman still hasn't grasped the basics of investigative journalism."
kindler asked whether it was Climategate -- or Swifthack?: "While I’m not big on conspiracy theories, it strikes me that a much more interesting line of questioning would focus on the curious coincidence that some very skillful hackers would steal and sort through 13 years of emails, sending the most embarrassing ones to climate denial websites – right before the international climate summit in Copenhagen."
LaFeminista bleeped out her lament in ******* **** in Copenhagen."Here were are with some of the poorest countries already severely affected by climate change and whole nations at risk from catastrophic flooding if not sinking altogether. Then some bright spark gets up and whines but but it will affect what we are doing and will slow us down. This has happened at Copenhagen."
Green Revolution - Ideology Holding America Back wrote davej: "American competitiveness is severely hobbled by our "free market" and anti-government attitudes. One way our competitors hold us back is by encouraging this outdated ideology. Result: other countries have national economic/industrial strategies and we don't. So we lose. Remember how ‘chips’ was a major driver of the economy in the 80s and 90s? Then the Internet drove the economy late 90's and early 2000s? The world understands that "green energy" is the next big industry that will drive the world economy. Actually, the rest of the world has understood this for some time and has been investing and inventing and innovating and building. Meanwhile over here America's big oil and coal companies bought themselves a Presidency and an anti-government ideology and a climate-change-denial industry that has cost us 8 years and counting."
EarTo44 suggested we erect Global Warming Denier Statues: "What if some of our biggest Global Warming denier's were made into statues and those statues placed near the shores of the places that are most likely to suffer from climate change first. These can be members of Congress or corporate executives that influence how our politicians vote on issues."
In a pair of diaries Desmogblog discussed how, contrary to what the denialogues have claimed, Stolen email shows scientist happily sharing climate research data: "At least one of the scientists being accused by industry groups and right-wing think tanks of hiding their climate research data, appears in an email we found in the stolen files to be more than happy with sharing his data. Not only does he share it, but he does so with a person he's never even met before! Now that our research team has completed a thorough analysis of the entire 1000+ email record, we'll be publishing a lot of the information in the coming days that runs counter to the claims made by those using these leaked emails to further their own political agendas."
And in Revisionist History and the CRU East Anglia stolen emails - the Baliunas example: "One of the more egregious examples of the public relations spin on the East Anglia hacked email story involves a six-year-old research paper authored by Sallie Baliunas, an American astrophysicist affiliated with at least nine oil-industry-funded organizations."
MinistryOfTruth discovered that 120% of public think climate scientists lie about global warming says Fox FAIL and Balanced News: "I thought mistakes at Fox would have consequences? Guess not. Last week, Fox and Friends showed a Rasmussen poll graphic revealing that a whopping 120 percent of the American public believes scientists may be falsifying research to support their own theories on global warming."
ask noted the Green City Ranking + Copenhagen Disarray: "Siemens AG has sponsored a study to rank the sustainability of 30 European cities developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Quite appropriately, Copenhagen was ranked highest - followed by Stockholm and Oslo, while ex-Soviet and eastern European cities ranked at the bottom, with Kiev last."
jubelirer said we should change our terminology in "Climate change" doesn't exist: "Here was their strategy (remember, this was 7 years ago): ‘There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science. Continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.’ How? By changing the words used to describe the situation and mounting an all-out attack on science. The Republican party and supporting network of conservative think tanks replaced with phrase global warming" in favor of ‘climate change,’ a kinder, gentler and more benign term. The phrase ‘global warming’ appeared frequently in President Bush's speeches in 2001, but decreased to almost nothing during 2002, after the memo was produced. Even the term global warming, a term originating from scientists before the extent of the crisis was fully known, serves to diminish the severity of the threat. Climate change means climate instability (wet areas getting wetter, dry areas getting drier, more severe storms, etc.); global warming is really global heating. Let’s call it what it is: the climate crisis."
A Siegel had a suggestion for spending what the extra troops in Afghanistan will cost in Just $30 billion to put 4.5 million to work!: "Investing in building energy efficiency is one of the most effective ways to create job and revitalize the economy while achieving other objectives. Ed Mazria and Architecture 2030 have been a fount of good ideas as to how to spark employment and boost economic performance while reducing polluting energy habits and kick-starting the nation toward a prosperous low-pollution future. These have truly been win-win-win concepts. His latest proposal lays out how $30 billion invested in buying down mortgages based on building energy efficiency would create 4.5 million jobs and end up paying for itself. My perspective: the nation should be listening to Mazria!"
He also took another whack at Enemies of Green ... faux and balanced: "The Washington Post has a sad record of Faux and Balanced when it comes to Global Warming. Sunday's opinion pieces provided yet another textbook example. The opinion sections has two authors, both enemies of 'green' ... from utterly different angles. George will-ful deceit Will, yet again, problems deceitful truthiness, words skillfully woven to inhibit movement forward. Mike Tidwell argues with thoughtful eloquence that we should, in essence, turn away from individual action to demand political action to hasten societal change rather than chase the chimera that individual action is enough."
captainlaser presented An Oath for Earth Scientists:
annapaxis sought to be balanced in climate change and natural variation: "I am not a climate scientist, but I do feel that I have some capacity to assess scientific truth claims. I have seen far too many gross distortions on either side of this debate, and it has driven me to learn more. I know that there are a lot of knowledgeable people on this site, so I was hoping that some of you could help me with a question. One question in particular has interested me of late: to what degree is the rise in temperature over the past 150 years due to natural variation as opposed to man-made or anthropogenic causes?"
StevenLeser posted his debate with Eric Bolling re: Global Warming on Fox News' Your World 12-7-09:
politicalpirate suggested we Tell Obama "HELL NO" to the Danish Text: "They're going to sell us, and the planet out by presenting an unworkable text to Copenhagen. The proposed text would effectively remove any responsibility from the developed world to cut emissions, and instead would rely on deep cuts from the developing world. It would also transfer responsibility for climate change from the United Nations to the World Bank."
Cook for Good said we should Look to farmers for good news on global warming, social justice: "Last weekend, I went to the Sustainable Agriculture Conference held by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association. Several hundred farmers, social workers, farmers' market coordinators, cooks, and others interested in the farm-to-fork chain met in Black Mountain, North Carolina. ... Read on for how organic farmers and shoppers fight global warming and how one non-profit is helping farmers' markets reach food-stamp recipents while another fights to put people before pesticides."
ufw asked that we Help Protect Children From Toxic Pesticides: "Luis Medellin and his three little sisters, aged 5, 9 and 12, live in the middle of an orange grove in Lindsay, CA--a small farming town in the Central Valley. During the growing season, Luis and his sisters are awakened several times a week by the sickly smell of nighttime pesticide spraying. What follows is worse: searing headaches, nausea, vomiting. The Medellin family’s story is not unique. From apple orchards in Washington to potato fields in Florida, drifting poisonous pesticides plague the people who live nearby--posing a particular risk to the young children of the nation's farm workers, many of whom live in industry housing at the field's edge."
Lefty Coaster pointed out that there are 500,000 Climate Refugees per year in Bangladesh NOW: "The 20 million of people in southern Bangladesh are in jeopardy of becoming early victims of Global Warming. ... Floods that are also increasing in severity, wrecking homes, saturating farmers' fields with salt water rendering the land infertile, and contaminating well water. These are very poor people, in a very poor country. Bangladeshis have a per capita income of just $480 US."
blue jersey mom explored EcoJustice: Environmental Racism, Camden, NJ, and the St. Lawrence Cement Plant: "Dirty Jersey, a study carried out at Columbia University, shows that most of New Jersey has more that 400 times the rate of air pollution that is allowed by the EPA. The impact on poor and minority communities is even greater. Residents of the South Camden Waterfront community are exposed to particularly high levels of dioxin, lead, manganese, nickel, cadmium, and arsenic in their air and drinking water. Not surprisingly, the members of that community suffer from particularly high levels of asthma and other respiratory diseases. A major source for the manganese pollution is the St. Lawrence cement plant."
RLMillerWhy I'm Lukewarm about EPA's Greenhouse Gas Finding: "Today, the Environmental Protection Agency took another step on the road toward regulation of mobile pollution sources (cars and trucks). It issued formal findings that greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide and five others) endanger human health, and that the greenhouse gases cause or contribute toward pollution. "Well, yes, isn't that rather obvious?" ...I applaud the EPA's action but warn progressives not to be complacent about it."
Skylineproject posted the opening film On Copenhagen
Growthbuster opined that Copenhagen Needs Daylight: Overpopulation & Addiction to Economic Growth: "We Need an Alternative to Economic Growth: If there’s anything tougher than population to bring into the conversation, it’s economic growth. Other than an enlightened minority, everyone is rooting for economic growth. An insistence on economic growth is the single biggest limitation on every nation’s Copenhagen position. This insistence is resulting in unimpressive promises to increase CO2 emissions more slowly. That is not going to cut it. We seem to be willing to burn down the house to keep warm. Sadly the world is not ready to get unhooked from its growth addiction and irrational belief in perpetual economic growth. The news that recession is helping reduce emissions should cause us to pause and reflect."
xysea declared that What We Need Is Something Radical: "While I appreciate the Administration’s desire to find middle ground to make everyone happen, in some cases some things are just not up for negotiation. Well, okay, maybe they are up for negotiation, but in this case it’s like trying to negotiate for an extra 5 hours of float time before the Titanic sinks. Sure, you can try but the end result will remain the same. The ship will sink, unless something radical happens. And that’s what we need. Something radical. Only it doesn’t look like that’s what we’re going to get."
In a contrarian diary, pollwatcher said we should Forget Global Warming, It's the Economy Stupid!: "Polls continue to show that we are losing the war to warn the public of the coming holocaust of Global Warming. Not only is the public, who was overwhelming with us, starting to doubt the seriousness of the problem, they're actually starting to doubt the problem exists. But worst of all, when asked questions about taking direct action, like support for cap and trade, the public is almost evenly split. The bullhorn of propaganda from the denialists is wearing down the general public. Without strong public support, good carbon reduction legislation simply won't pass. It's the economy stupid!"
Scott on the Spot explained A new form of Capitalism: Geonomics: "Let's make a deal with all the fossil fuel companies, CAFOs, mining companies, and all other resource-intensive industries. We'll untax their profits IF they agree to pay true costs for resources (which, rightfully, really belong to all of us; Exxon didn't make the oil in the ground, did it?), as well as pollution, land use and whatever else they don't actually produce, but merely take from nature. This Geonomic idea would discourage the waste of resources, end land and commodity speculation on the markets by taking away the ‘fuel’ for it in the form of taxes which would be returned to the community, free up innovation by untaxing true productive operations, and vastly reduce pollution by finally taxing these ‘externalities.’"
Patric Juillet reported on a media event in Hopenhagen: World Media Sends Powerful Message to UN Conference: "I was happy to read that my morning newspaper, The Irish Times, has joined another 55 newspapers in 45 countries, to launch an unprecedented appeal to the opening of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen. How unprecedented, you might ask. Well, all 56 newspapers are publishing the SAME EDITORIAL, run in each of the newspapers."
LaughingPlanet illustrated his diary with some of his own terrific photos in Breaking apart: Himalayan glaciers: "In a region which is home to over one third of the planet's humans, we are watching the most vital element for the sustainability of life disappear: Now, a growing number of glaciers are losing their equilibrium, or their capacity to build up enough snow and ice at high altitudes to compensate for the rate of melting at lower ones. After surveying the Himalayas for many years, the respected Chinese glaciologist Yao Tandong recently warned that, given present trends, almost two-thirds of the [Tibetan] plateau’s glaciers could well disappear within the next 40 years. With the planet having just experienced the 10 hottest years on record, the average annual melting rate of mountain glaciers seems to have doubled after the turn of the millennium from the two decades before."
rktect talked about Pine Island Glacier: "Climate Change: Pine Island Glacier is now allowing the Antarctic Ice Cap to melt at the same rate as Greenlands ice. The surprising non linear acceleration of Antarctica's ice melt since 2005 has caught scientists by surprise."
jovie131 was delighted that the EPA concludes that CO2 endangers human life!: "n order to regulate CO2 emissions, the EPA first had to declare that greenhouse gases endangered life. Under the clean air act, the EPA now has the authority to regulate harmful emissions. This gives the Administration some needed leverage before climate change meetings on the 18th..."
Roger Lamb told us about The battle within the Australian right over climate change continues: "A few days ago, I wrote a diary on the state of the illiberal "Liberal" Party in Australia, which was busy tearing itself apart over the issue of climate change and what to do about it. There were the moderates who were aligned, after negotiation, with the Labor Party over an emissions trading scheme. But then there were the conservatives (a kind term for them, all things considered), who scuttled the deal in the Australian Senate after much drama, and after tossing out their moderate-on-this-issue leader, Malcolm Turnbull (in a party room vote of 42 to 41)."
RLMiller wrote yet another diary, Hike On! Listening to the sounds of silenceStarting venturing into the wilderness, your ears are still attuned to human sounds, and it takes a good trail mile or so before the sounds of automobiles fade away. Then you hear a lizard scurrying over a dried leaf, or the distant howl of a coyote, the mating grunts of two bullfrogs, or the soft slither of a snake on sand. Water, in all its variations: dripping from trees, roaring down waterfalls, and curling into ocean waves. You might hear the whisper of the wind in the tall grasses, or the crunch of newly fallen snow. You might even hear the cries of the pine trees beseeching humans to preserve them."
beach babe in fl wrote the latest installment of Macca's Meatless Monday, She Loves Stew yeah, yeah, yeah, including a recipe for black bean and sweet potato stew. Yowser.
Other green diaries included:
Dispatches from Cop15: Over the Atlantic apollogonzales.
Wow. EPA Rules Greenhouse Gases Are a Danger to Human Health-- by polar bear.
Winning the Climate Change Battle On the Front Lines- A Call for Reinforcements by Free Chicken and Beer.
Climate skeptics lying about their credentials? by Webster Hubble Telescope.
Woman Who Invented Credit Default Swaps is One of the Key Architects of Carbon Derivatives by MightyMole.
Zombie Power For An Actual Future For The Planet by terryhallinan.
Local Paper Blows It on Climate Change . . . Help Me Set the Record Straight by Geenius at Wrok.
Developing Nations Find Out Copenhagen Treaty is a Screw Job by sabo53.
Copenhagen Meltdown by scorpiorising.
WMO: Global Warming Not Slowing by Meteor Blades.
Global Warming Not Occurring -- 2009 Likely to Only be 5th Warmest Year on Record by Colt45.