The Livable Blog

It's the protesters who offer the best hope for our planet

12/16/09

09:48:36 pm, by edoherty

, 283 words

Categories: Environment

It's the protesters who offer the best hope for our planet

Johann Hari: It's the protesters who offer the best hope for our planet

They've ensured the corporate lobbyists punching holes in the deal are shamed

Wednesday, 16 December 2009

At first glance, the Copenhagen climate summit seems like a Salvador Dali dreamscape. I just saw Archbishop Desmond Tutu being followed by a swarm of Japanese students who were dressed as aliens and carrying signs saying "Take Me To Your Leader" and "Is Your Species Crazy?". Before that, a group of angry black-clad teenage protesters who were carrying spray cans started quoting statistics to me about how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere can safely absorb. (It's 350 parts per million they pointed out, before sucking their teeth.) Before that, I saw a couple in a pantomime cow costume being attacked by the police, who accused them of throwing stones with their hooves.

But the surrealism runs deeper and darker than this. Inside the Bella Centre, the rich world's leaders are defiantly ignoring their scientists and refusing to sign a deal that will prevent our climate from being dramatically destabilised. The scientific consensus shows the rich world needs to cut 40 per cent of our emissions of warming gases from 1990 levels by 2020 if we're going to have even a 50-50 chance of staying this side of the Point of No Return, when the Earth's natural processes start to break down and warming becomes unstoppable. Yet the scientists at Climate Analytics calculate our governments are offering a dismal 8-12 per cent cut – and once you factor in all the loopholes and accounting tricks, it becomes a net increase of four per cent. [snip]

Read the rest, it is worth it! http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-its-the-protesters-who-offer-the-best-hope-for-our-planet-1841887.html

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