COP15 Reax

-If we learned anything from the Copenhagen fiasco, it's that world political leaders (some elected, some not) and governments have failed their people, and can't be trusted to push back climate change. It's now apparent that any and all meaningful action is going to have to be taken by the people, not the leaders. The future of the movement needs to target individuals to make changes in their lives and their actions. When the people lead, the leaders follow. This removes subsidies, monitoring and incentives from the equation, and as crazy as it sounds, puts business at the forefront. Since government has failed to stem climate change, the market will have to step in. The lasting impact of Copenhagen will be the switch of environmentalism from a liberal to a "conservative" movement, from big government to business (even though green businesses aren't politically conservative... this term is being used in a non-political way). The people need to take it upon themselves to bypass watered-down international agreements and take on climate change in a grassroots way.

-This "deal" that Obama forged came out of a meeting of China, India, Brazil and South Africa. This is interesting in a couple ways. First, it is absurd that the deal is being struck only by the biggest polluters and most obstinate nations. The US, China and India alone count for half of the world's emissions, and somehow we're to trust their leadership in forging a deal? China and India are full of shit, and need to be removed from the G77 and never again classified as developing nations. Secondly, on a more positive note, this meeting represents the dramatic shift in world power in recent years. Not a white face present in that meeting. Two Asian giants, the largest economies in South America and Africa, and the US, led by a black president. It starkly illustrates how far the world has come, and where it is going in the 21st century. As bad as things are, it's good that southern hemispheric nations are wielding equal power. The fact that Brazil and South Africa were present is unequivocally positive.

-PR people always say that no publicity is bad publicity. Unlike Kyoto and Bali, every eye in the world was trained on this conference. While there were many opposed factions, from wealthy countries to developing nations to China and India to the protesters at the gate, everyone agreed that climate change is real and needs to be dealt with. So why must inept political leaders be the ones to deal with it, if everyone in the world is watching? Crowdsource it. It will be interesting to see what kind of alternative measures are born from the ashes of the official conference.

-Obama's governing M.O. is becoming pretty clear: sell out progressive values to strike weak and watered down agreements simply for the sake of being able to say that something was done, even if that something turns out to be meaningless or even a net negative. This has happened with the financial sector, health care, Afghanistan and now with climate change. Obama thinks long term, doesn't look for quick fixes, is patient and has foresight. It might very well turn out that he was right on all these issues, that coming to some agreement, weak as it is, is not only better than nothing but will pave the way for better agreements in the future. I, for one, am willing to wait it out and see where he's going with this, because I trust his intellect and realize that all other feasible candidates and options are inferior. But he is pretty spineless, and it's apparent that he doesn't feel strongly enough about anything to take a stand. With climate change, however, the environment isn't going to be waiting anything out, and anything Obama is doing is too little, too late.