Environmental Education Media Project

Word from inside the plenary this windy and cold Friday morning in Denmark is that things are tense and unprecedented.  This mirrors Achim’s Steiner’s characterization Wednesday that the talks were “in crisis.”  And in conversation with a range of people in the last 24 hours there is a broad sense that the groundwork has not been laid for a binding treaty.  Even as most fundamental of disagreements remain unresolved, operational details of implementation have begun to unwind as well.

Regardless of what does or not come by way of final agreements or statements from the Conference of Parties, beyond this meeting the human response to climate change cannot honestly be described as anything other than a colossal failure.  Some good, particularly around the issues of forests and desertification, will almost assuredly emerge; and those are important steps forward.  But remember, even a stopped clock is right twice every day.

As a species, we have delayed and denied.

As a species, we have procrastinated.

As a species, we have squabbled and bickered when action was needed.

As a species, we have failed the next generation in our refusal to be held accountable.

As a species, we have played a global shell game of avoided responsibility.  It is China’s fault.  It is the fault of the US Senate.  It is Brazil’s failure to protect the Amazon; Indonesia’s fault for allowing peat bogs to drained.  The financial crisis is to blame as it drained needed resources from the global economy.

But let us not, please, add insult to injury by repeating the surreal arrogance of last July’s G8 pledge to keep global temperatures within 2°.  Are we really so wiling to engage in farce that we think we can simply instruct nature to keep the temperature down?  Perhaps, we might also commit the nations of the world to, say, the end of mudslides; let us pledge to eliminate, perhaps, hurricanes; or solemnly agree to ensure a white Christmas.

While it is one thing to be on the wrong side of history, it is quite beyond that to be on the wrong side of geology, to be in denial of how our basic natural systems have evolved over the course of evolutionary time.  It is we, the human species, who need to take responsibility for our own future.  Nature, embraced, is our greatest ally, our greatest resource, our greatest hope for a secure and stable future.  But as nature knows not of politics, politics had best soon learn to know much, much more about nature than our leaders show evidence of understanding today.

- Jonathan J. Halperin?????