One Month Until This Year's Climate Change Circus Begins!

From Bali in 2007 (when we still thought we had a chance to get it right) to Poznan (where nothing whatsoever seemed to happen), then from Copenhagen in 2009 (where Obama and his henchmen, including the prime minister of my country, threw every climate change activist in the world into a depression of some duration) to Cancun in 2010 (where the very courageous Pablo Solón representing Bolivia was the lone voice for a rapid and scientifically rationale response to the emergency), the UN's climate change negotiations have become more and more circus-like.

As in circus: |ˈsərkəs| A traveling company of acrobats, trained animals, and clowns that gives performances, typically in a large tent, in a series of different places.

The Durban Climate Change Conference starts one month from tomorrow, and will run from November 29 to December 9, 2011. Durban is a (mostly) lovely seaside city in South Africa; too bad it, too, will be turned into a circus. (The name "Copenhagen" is now associated with farce and failure.)

We've had a Bali Road Map, a Copenhagen Accord (see? nothing happened in Poznan, Poland), a set of Cancun Agreements — and still, absolutely NO national or international declaration that we've reached "dangerous interference with the climate system" (a UN Framework Convention on Climate Change trick: if we don't declare it, we don't have to do anything about it). NO declaration that we're in a global climate change emergency. NO emergency response. NO result from any of these conferences that has actually led to any nation, anywhere, moving toward a zero-carbon economy. (Even the disappearing Maldive Islands are only heading for carbon neutrality, not zero carbon.)

Where's our global imagination? Why aren't we excited about working together to envision the zero-carbon economy? (After all, it'll be safer, cleaner, healthier, more equitable and more peaceful than what we've got now!) Why do our leaders and negotiators feel such disdain for our (and their own) children and grandchildren? For our whole species? For life itself? Why do they act the role of such ecologically illiterate, callous clowns when they get together at these climate change conferences?

May this year's negotiators keep the world's most vulnerable, the children of all species, and future generations in their hearts and minds as they do their negotiating. Who else could they possibly think they're negotiating for???

*******

Hey, great cartoon, eh? I commissioned it from Stephanie McMillan, award-winning editorial cartoonist. If you want to use it, let me know and I'll send you a high quality version. Visit her Code Green website to see more ("Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down..."), or to commission your own cartoon.

Climate Change Extravaganza!

EXTRAVAGANZA: from the Italian stravaganza, meaning extravagance.

1. a musical or dramatic composition or production, as comic opera or musical comedy, marked by a loose structure, a frivolous theme, and elaborate costuming and staging.

2. any lavish or opulent show, event, assemblage, etc.

I attended a Christmas Extravaganza last night with my hubby (who protested the whole time, but secretly enjoyed the tribute to Motown) and three friends. My friend, Shelley, when they started singing White Christmas, whispered in my ear, "We should do a climate change extravaganza!"

So, the seed is planted. I am now searching (so please send them in!) for songs, dances, stories and jokes about climate change that we can work into a vaudevillian show. Can you picture it?

• I'm Having Nightmares of a Green Christmas
• Stop! In the Name of Life
• I'm Singin' in the Cyclone, Just Singin' in the Cyclone
• Don't Worry, Be Hungry
• Tsunami Safari

Okay, I've got it started. I'll need you to contribute your ideas. Auditions for the singers, dancers and musicians will begin in July. Anyone want to contribute their skills in choreography and musical arrangement?

Folks, the Cancun climate talks proved that the whole international climate scene is a complete and absolute farce. Why not carry on the theme?

By this time next week, another Christmas season will be over. Life, at least in the Western part of the northern hemisphere, will quiet down for a few weeks (til the next opportunity for a consumer orgy — Valentine's Day). What better time to put together our Climate Change Extravaganza? I'll look forward to hearing from you.

Cancun Rhetoric ... Kiss the Future Goodbye

NOT.

Did you know that if this were a blog about recipes or crafts, I'd receive sometimes up to 70 or more responses after each post? But because it's about the future of life on Earth, I hardly ever hear from anyone?

Mind you, with the denialists trolling around out there, I'm pleased that they either haven't found this blog or can't argue with compassion. I've never heard from a single one! (Although there was that one guy who called me an ecoweenie — for caring — on his own blog ... does he count? ;-)

That said (can you tell I've been searching for recipes and craft ideas this past week?), let me give you my take on the results of the Cancun climate conference, which ended early yesterday — from the perspective of climate compassion.

It's simple. For some weird-ass reason, almost all the negotiators, heads of state and NGOs thought that "saving the process" is more important than saving the world and protecting the children. They're all patting themselves on the back for "saving the process." (And again promising more money to developing nations* and again deciding that they'll save the world next year** and again concurring on halting deforestation*** and again realizing that the industrialized nations ought to reduce their emissions and again agreeing that, ooh, we really should peak our carbon emissions soon — but not yet.)

Only Bolivia had the cojones (if Sarah Palin can use the term, so can I) to stand against the Cancun Agreements. "Responsibly, we cannot go along with a situation that my President has termed 'ecocide and genocide'," said Pablo Solon, Bolivian ambassador to the United Nations. Of course, Bolivia is losing the source of drinking water and irrigation for its capital city, La Paz — due to global warming. So they might know a thing or two more than your average-idiot must-continue-burning-fossil-fuels-at-all-costs head of state when it comes to the climate change emergency.

There are lots and lots of reasons NOT to celebrate this agreement. (Bless them, Friends of the Earth, through Asad Rehman, said, "The emissions cuts on the table could still lead to a global temperature increase of up to five degrees, which would be catastrophic for hundreds of millions of the world's poorest people." It was Greenpeace's Wendel Trio who said, "Cancun may have saved the process but it has not yet saved the climate." And Kate Blagojevic, of World Development Movement, said, "A year after the Copenhagen Accord little has changed, and 300,000 more people have died from climate change-related impacts. Another year will pass where more lives will be ruined by climate change.")

Here's the scariest for me (you know, besides the entrenchment of the 2ºC warming target and other future-killing agreements like that).

Until now, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process has been based on achieving 100 percent consensus — which is why the United States has been able to delay, delay, delay global action. Until now. Now, it's okay to ignore Bolivia's disagreement with the proposal. Now, it's okay to bang the gavel (because all the big boys were on board) and simply ignore a country that is already being impacted by one of the scariest of climate change impacts.

So, on the list of the 194 or so countries at the table, where is the line drawn? Above this line, if they disagree, there's no consensus and back to the drawing board. But below this line, well, that nation doesn't count much so @!#& 'em. Where has that line been drawn? Translation: We, the people, have no power. Zero. Zip. Naught. Nada. Nichts. None whatsoever.

If the Cancun Agreements signal "progress," then we can kiss the future goodbye.

* The multi-billion dollar Green Fund promised to help developing nations fight climate change doesn't have to start for another year (it's been a commitment in the UNFCCC text since 1992), and it's to be run by the World Bank. He he, that's a funny one.

** When time is of the essence and the climate change emergency is already impacting the most climate-change-vulnerable populations (a preview of what will befall us all soon), why do negotiators keep putting off doing anything real and really effective until the next Conference of the Parties (in Durban, South Africa next year)? Why? No, really, why?

*** REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation + replanting, etc.) has been fought by indigenous peoples around the world. Why did they have no say in these agreements? Not only that, but their top spokesperson, Tom Goldtooth, was denied access to the talks, escorted away by security for being critical of the process. And this is "success," is it? Bah, humbug.

Guest Post - Letter to Leading Climate Criminal, Senator James Inhofe

Today, I would like to share a guest post from, as he describes himself, a one-man climate injustice campaign: http://www.climatecrimeshumanity.com/about.html. No mincing of words here!

4 December 2010

Letter Sent to Leading Global Climate Criminal Senator Inhofe

Attention: James M. Inhofe

US Senator Oklahoma

453 Russell Senate Office Building

Washington, DC 20510-3603

Senator, today I read the text of your videotaped message to your climate denial co-conspirators who are attending the UN Cancun climate conference with respect to the failure of the conference.

I write to urge you to cease and desist your most deadly campaign of sabotage to greenhouse gas emissions control measures and to the work of all those who are trying to prevent the global warming, climate change and ocean acidification catastrophe to planet Earth.

You have the audacity to state that you "couldn’t be happier that nothing is going to happen in Cancun this year." You urge your treasonous co-conspirators to "Keep up the good work — and for those of you in Cancún this week, stay strong, take no prisoners, and enjoy the party!"

Celebrating your terrible "success," you state, "I was right and they were wrong" — meaning those who, having a conscience and a sense of human morality, have been working for climate change control legislation in the United States and internationally. You have the most perverted sense of right and wrong. You claim to be a devout Christian. God will surely judge the evil of your deeds by the destructive desecration of His Creation.

What you call your "success" in effectively sabotaging the international negotiations for the prevention of global climate catastrophe makes you a leading contender for Public Enemy Number One in America and the world and for all time.

You must know that your successful campaign has the world committed to a temperature increase above 2.0ºC which means worldwide climate catastrophe.

You may be deluded by your apparent megalomania into believing that America is invulnerable to global climate change. If so, on this you are dead wrong. The latest climate crop models show that the great American agricultural breadbasket of the world will be hit hard by global warming and climate disruption.

Your home state of Oklahoma, which you are supposed to represent in government, is right in the middle of computer-model-projected regional heat waves and droughts and so will suffer devastating agricultural and economic losses — at temperature increases that the world is on track for within the next 25 years. On track for thanks to your work.

Additionally, if as most scientists believe, the Arctic summer sea ice is in irreversible melt down, the loss of its cooling influence to the entire northern hemisphere will further devastate American crops. Americans will then experience famine along with those billions of people who are today recognized as the most climate change vulnerable.

This statement of yours to the Cancun climate conference will surely stand as your own record of your own guilt in this worst crime against humanity.

Language has not been invented to adequately describe the enormity of this crime. The crime surpasses all the crimes of all the worst tyrants and terrorists in human history all rolled together. The successful sabotaging of the US greenhouse gas emissions control policy and international negotiations for global climate change mitigation policy condemns billions of the most climate change vulnerable and climate change innocent human beings to a horrible death from global warming and climate disruption, depleting their already meagre food supplies and already stressed water security compounded by the multiplication of tropical and infectious diseases — which after malnutrition is the second greatest cause of the already high premature death rates to these economically oppressed and deprived populations.

Not surprisingly, being recognized as congress’s most outspoken skeptic on climate change, you are now gloating at what you describe as the "success" of the conspiracy to sabotage to international attempts to control global greenhouse gas emissions.

You were speaking to Americans for Prosperity, a group partly financed by the oil industry that opposes government action on climate change and that has sponsored many Tea Party groups.

In your message you urge your troops to take the attack against climate change mitigation to counter the US EPA greenhouse gas regulations.

Intoxicated by your psychopathic success you openly admit your guilt in leading this greatest crime against humanity.

Please, please, for God's sake, reflect on the inevitable terrible result of how you are abusing your powers, and use your considerable skills and influence in securing a future for America and the world by the conversion of the fossil fuel energy economy (which has no future however it is looked at), with the safe, clean, zero-carbon, everlasting world energy economy that is the only future that America and humanity has.

Here's the scary part. Inhofe says all these things with a straight face, like he's proud of himself. Ignorance (though I suspect he's more paid off than ignorant) is a dangerous — and in his case, deadly — thing. I pity the poor Oklahomans, and all Americans who believe that money is more important than life.

Less Than Zero Expectations for Cancun

Can anyone believe that a year has passed already since the Copenhagen climate talks became the biggest global disappointment of all time? (Worse, even, I suspect, than Bush illegally invading Iraq following peace vigils and protests all over the world — which were wonderful but one-offs. Climate activists in this household spend up to 16 hours every day on this issue, so Copenhagen was shockingly depressing.)

The Cancun climate talks begin tomorrow. I don't care. I know nothing good will come of them. The new UNFCCC executive secretary, Christiana Figueres, has told us to expect nothing. The outgoing Yvo de Boer had nothing promising to say before he left his post. Journalists are already using pessimistic terms to describe the negotiations, slated to run from November 29 to December 10, 2010 in Mexico.

• Battle lines drawn for Cancun climate conference
• Delegates brace for setbacks
• UN talks in Mexico to seek modest climate steps
• EU sets sights low for climate talks
• United Nations climate talks in limbo
• No hope for climate talks, says Britain's chief scientist
• Two hundred nations, one mission: to repair the mess left by Copenhagen
• Hopes low as Australia heads to climate talks
• Prospect of climate deal slim: Analysts
• Doubts surround climate deal
• Cancun conference: Climate change back-burnered
• Cancun & the climate 'standstill'
• Stalled on treaty, climate talks turn to money
• No big surprises likely at Cancun meet
• Optimism, though cautious, remains ahead of Cancun climate conference [Me: optimism, though cautious, equals pessimism]
• Horror summer fails to shift Russia climate scepticism [Me: many Russians are still convinced climate change is an American conspiracy — no, wait, the Americans think it's a ....]
• Climate change will make a billion homeless [Me: oops, sorry, thought I'd throw a little reality in there]

Already negotiators are talking about things like "notching up progress" on a few issues "to help revive faith" in the UNFCCC process. According to Artur Runge-Metzger, the European Union's chief negotiator, all parties "want to show the world that this process can deliver, it can move the international climate agenda forward." Harvard professor, Robert Stavins, has said, "The most sensible goal for Cancun is progress on a sound foundation for meaningful long-term action, not some notion of immediate triumph."

Got that? No talk of saving the world or safeguarding the future. No mention of Africa and small island states. No mention of the children of all species. No mention of actually %$#!ing well doing something!!!!! Why wouldn't we want immediate triumph, for heaven's sake?

Gee, shucks, people have lost faith in the process. BLOODY RIGHT WE HAVE! And for good reason. Because "governments" care more about the process and who's "winning" and who's "losing" than they care about the Earth and the future and their own children.

So go ahead, Cancun. Achieve something. Do something good. I dare you. But I ain't holding my breath — I'm not setting myself up for the deep depression I suffered last year post-Copenhagen. Nope. Not me. I know you're going to keep diddling while the Earth burns. You're all ignorant, you're mean-spirited, you're avaricious, and you're cowardly — and you certainly don't have a creative neuron in your 200 brains put together.

I'm just going to keep doing what I do ... teaching people about the urgency of the climate change emergency — and encouraging them to feel some compassion for the world's most climate-change-vulnerable and become heroes for their own children.

p.s. Hey, just thought of something! What if all the negotiators who love their children just walked out? Just said, "Screw it!" to their bosses back home? Just went to the beach? Ah, I guess I am still a little bit optimistic.

My Blahg — and One Bright Light in Cancun (Klimaforum)

There was an excitement, a real sense of anticipation in the air, before the Copenhagen climate change conference a year ago.

But the mood this year, in lead up to the COP 16 Cancun climate change conference, feels more like a forced smile. And I don't think it's just me who's feeling rather blah about it.

I know that Copenhagen was an engineered let-down, and I resent having been manipulated last year. But this year, "they" are manufacturing complete pessimism, saying that nothing will be agreed to at Cancun (including the outgoing and incoming executive secretaries of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change). I ask myself, then, Why bother?

Why bother even holding the meeting if the point is to agree to not agree on anything? What a waste of time, money, people's energy and fossil fuels! What a waste of optimism.

For about three minutes yesterday, I thought, Wouldn't it be neat to do a Countdown to Cancun — and blog every day until it starts on November 26? But why force the smile? Why expend the time and energy for something that has already decided to be a failure? It's too, well, blah.

There is one bright light, however, and that is Klimaforum, which is planning a grassroots initiative in parallel to the COP 16 summit. Organizers are calling it "an autonomous environmental summit, an atmosphere in communion with nature, an inspiring space, where people of all creeds can focus on the search for consensus on international actions towards climate justice."

Their low-carbon Global EcoVillage (with camping spaces for thousands of participants and a vegetarian "world kitchen") will offer forums, expositions, workshops, conferences, and cultural events — all in a natural environment.

Here is Klimaforum's rallying cry:

Beyond corporate interests or political influences, a transparent global voice for the Earth is summoned.

The stabilization of the climate is essential to the survival of all species on Earth. It is a matter of intergenerational justice. People of all ages and creeds unite in the demand for effective solutions that will preserve life on the planet. We, the people, have the capacity and the necessity to solve these issues with understanding, solidarity and perseverance. We have the possibility to create another world!

Change the system, not the climate!

I know that the Klimaforum10 Mexico organizing committee has already faced formidable challenges, so I want to wish them all the very best. What an exciting, optimistic alternative to the UN climate meeting they are organizing! Please support them in any way you can. They're the best news in a long time!

You can visit their website at klimaforum10.net or klimaforum10.com/en/the-committee/international-call. Prepare to be inspired and leave the blahs behind.