Global Warming Has Paused

President Obama returned from Copenhagen to a snowstorm in DC. This is fitting since the Climate Conference ended frozen in a deadlock.

Although UN General-Secretary Ban Ki-moon ended the Conference by saying that a deal had been "sealed", the so-called agreement that the 193 nations in attendance endorsed was not a binding agreement but merely took note of a plan worked out by the US President and four other countries (China, India, Brazil and South Africa) at the last minute.

The major accomplishment of that five nation plan was to get China to agree to having its progress toward reducing greenhouse gases subject to verification, along with other nations. The plan also seems to commit countries in agreement to submit lists of actions to be taken toward averting the "climate crisis". There is also some type of promise to raise billions of dollars by the richer nations to provide to some sort of fund that would benefit the poor nations.

The final UN deal announced by the Secretary-General would apparently list the countries that were in favor of the "sealed" deal and those against it. What kind of an agreement is that? It's actually a phony deal, which is good for anyone who values the sovereignty of their own nation's government and opposes a "new world order" that would mandate individual behavior and actions to control greenhouse gas emissions that may or may not be causing a climate crisis.

While political leaders are spinning their version of a success story, environmentalists are disappointed. Greenpeace issued a statement saying: "Don't believe the hype, there is nothing fair, ambitious or legally binding about this deal... The job of world leaders is not done. Today they shamefully failed to save us all from the effects of catastrophic climate change."

So the question has to be asked: what was the purpose of hundreds of Conference delegates flying to Copenhagen on hundreds of private jets (even UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Prince Charles flew there on separate planes), using thousands of limousines and killing untold numbers of trees to produce who knows how many pages of paper to record drafts of agreements never endorsed? Did any of this actually accomplish anything in the pursuit of preventing a global warming crisis that many question is actually a crisis while others contend that, even if there really is global warming, it is not caused by humans (see my Post "Just Asking...")?

All that was accomplished was to "kick the can" down the road to Mexico City in December of next year when this same group of leaders, scientists, protesters, posers in polar bear suits and environmentalists gather again to grab the world's attention to try to cause anguish and hand-wringing by all the insufficiently sensitized people around the globe.

It seems that someone could find out where there is agreement on the potential adverse consequences that may result from: the continued use of fossil fuels, unchecked pollution of all types and severe weather that increases and decreases in cycles and could hit almost anywhere in the world at any time without sufficient warning.

Whether these problems are man-made, causing global warming or increasing in severity over time should not be the focus of so much argument and political energy. The focus should be on developing technology to help alleviate human, animal and plant life suffering or damage caused by these continuing global issues.

There is no point to the countless arguments about how much money should be redistributed from rich countries to poor ones, pledging to reduce global temperatures by some set limit that likely cannot be controlled by mankind in any effectively measurable way anyway and basically trying to scare people in developed countries into feeling bad about anything they do that is not GREEN enough! The focus should be on solutions to the problems that many on all sides of the current debates could probably agree need to be addressed.

My suggestion is to establish an international R&D fund to provide grants to the best and brightest minds in the world to stimulate the development of new technology that helps create cost-effective alternative energy sources to reduce pollution and wasteful use of scarce resources and that helps all countries adopt new methods of preventing the harmful effects of severe cyclical weather patterns wherever and however they occur. See my post on a New Paradigm for Climate Change.

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