2009 — A Year We Will Live To Regret
This is my last column for 2009. The past year was notable for what didn’t happen.
Politics
Iraq and Oil Auction aftermath – Dec 17
-Iraq strengthens hand at OPEC with oil deals
-Iraq Auctions Development Rights to Oil Fields
-Majnoon win gives Shell a boost
-Shell, Lukoil to Join Iraqi Top Producers Based on Winning Bids
Climate and Copenhagen countdown – Dec 17
-Shell’s promise of a bright future turns out to be yet another false dawn
-Dramatic American intervention brings climate deal closer
-Greenland Glaciers: Water Flowing Beneath Ice Plays More Complex Role
-Chimerica Against the World
-Clinton Promises Climate Aid; Leaked UN Report Sees 3 C of Warming
Is Too Little Better Than Too Late?
Right now, on two different fronts, political progressives face a horrible choice: Accept a severely compromised political agreement or stick to their guns and run the risk of getting nothing. Sure, this is a recurring question for activists and advocates of all stripes but—unlike the so-called “death tax”—in these two cases the question really is a matter of life or death.
Throwing our energy at impossible dreams…
“as mankind proceeded to get bigger and bigger we silently crossed a threshold”
Does Relocalization Make You Stupid?
I made myself swear that I would not argue with any of my fellow Science bloggers for one full week after my arrival here, no matter what. Fortunately, my first week wound up yesterday, and with the arrival of Greg Laden’s essay on the political and intellectual dangers of relocalization, I’ve got good fodder for my first donnybrook ;-).
Search for Conservation Part 3: A Detour into Reality
…I feel like I shouldn’t be here, that none of us should be. . .that there should be 200,000 Cuyetano Huanca’s and Shorbana Khatun’s in Copenhagen, not 25,000 NGO reps and media reps. It’s a bit of a disgrace, and a reminder of our hubris, to think we represent the interests of the people most hurt by overconsumption (btw – this should not be a “climate conference” but a “capitalism/ overconsumption conference-;we should be focusing on the cause, not the effect)…
Cop-enhagen: Preemptive Mass Arrests in Context of History of Danes’ Movement
The signs up all over the airport and various places elsewhere in town are calling it Hopenhagen, but everybody I know is calling it Cop-enhagen, which seems far more appropriate. The international media have been giving this lots of coverage, and rightly so.
Climate conference vs. climate reality – Dec 15
-This is bigger than climate change. It is a battle to redefine humanity
-Oil sands emissions polluting waterways, study finds
-Brown offers £1.2bn in a bid to break climate deadlock
-A Second Life For Orbiting Carbon Observatory?
-Sunspots do not cause climate change, say scientists
-Cooling the Asphalt Jungle
-‘At this rate, Copenhagen will be a disaster’
Hostage Situation
Okay, so President Obama didn’t run for office to help out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street – or so he said on CBS’s “60 Minutes” show Sunday night. But maybe it didn’t seem like such a bad idea once the election was over.
Transitional demands
From modest beginnings as a permaculture class project at a college in Kinsale, Ireland, the Transition movement has spread its message of community resilience and low-carbon living around the world.
Critically Thinking Copenhagen
Everyone is talking about climate change and Copenhagen, so I suppose I should be…The latest dither around the topic involves back and forths between adherents and deniers of the climate change hypothesis and a certain expose of emails supposedly refuting the reality of climate change and a plethora of rebuttals to those emails.
