Gaian Forces in Copenhagen: America - the nation that is at the heart of the climate problem

And all other problems, no doubt. Including Islamism since if we had been a good anti imperialist nation all along, and we were a Ron Paulian foreign affairs nation and a Spenglerized socialist domestic nation, none of this bother would have occurred. Just ask Matt Damon.




GUARDIAN:

For the second time in just over a week, Barack Obama is on his way to Scandinavia, his mission once again to confront impossible expectations with a cold bucket of reality. Last week he was in Oslo to pick up a Nobel peace prize, apologetically explaining that in the real world away from Norwegian dreams he was a war president who had just escalated the US presence in Afghanistan. On Friday he will touch down in Copenhagen, this time required to offer his regrets that, despite the hopes he stirred round the world a year ago, he will not be able to pull out his pen and, at a stroke, sign the deal that saves the planet.

This is fast becoming Obama's role on the world stage: managing disappointment. The gap between what international opinion demands of him and what he can deliver widens with each passing month, and it falls to him to explain why. If he could be completely frank, he might well tell the climate activists in the Danish capital that, were it purely up to him, he would give them everything they desire. After all, he is the same man whose stump speech two years ago used to open with a declaration that "the planet is in peril". But it is not purely up to him. He has to represent the multiple, complex and contradictory interests of the country he now leads. His job is not saviour of the world. As the climate adviser to a 19-strong group of African nations puts it ruefully: "He's still an American president."

And America did not become a different country simply by electing Obama. It is still the nation that is at the heart of the climate problem - having contributed an estimated 30% of all the CO₂ already in the earth's atmosphere - and therefore of any viable solution. But it is also the country that, for a variety of stubborn political, economic and cultural reasons, might well be the hardest to shift. The world desperately needs America to be a leader on climate change, but the glum reality is that it is all but hard-wired to be a laggard.

Obama will do his best to put a shine on that truth, and he has some decent polish. Some of it does not even need saying. He will be in Copenhagen: what were the chances George Bush would have turned up? He is there with a strong team, including a string of cabinet secretaries, with a serious operation in the conference hall - a contrast, says USA Today, with the Bush era when the US presence at environmental meetings consisted of "a lone US official handing out pamphlets". Official US policy now accepts that global warming is real and that man is the key cause.

Obama can point to more than a change in attitude. His administration moved fast to extract a 30% increase in fuel efficiency from the car-makers, while a tenth of the stimulus - some $80bn - has been set aside for investment in clean energy. He has recently struck bilateral deals with both China and India, undertaking joint research projects on clean coal and electric cars. Perhaps most substantial is this month's ruling by the US Environmental Protection Agency that carbon dioxide and five other gases endanger human health - thereby allowing the agency to regulate emissions without waiting for the nod from Congress. That could see the US executive cracking down next year on car emissions, as well as those generated by coal and chemical plants.

Note the assumption of command economy. A law requiring 30% increase in economy equals the fact of it occurring, AND it's affordability.

You know the most aggravating thing about these anit human (and anti humanist) Gaian freaks is that I agree with every goal. I have done every single thing at a personal level they are demanding (except that beautiful Titan SE Crew Cab ..but even that - we use for moving equipment, and all our other vehicles are 30 mpg plus, one gets over 40). We are CFL in light. We use 0 oil and 0 gas and nearly 0 in electricity (need something when we go away for days) for heat. It's all renewable.

But we depart on the hysterical response required for the goals which are desirable and needed for every single geopolitical reason as well as the well being of the planet - the well being as a goal one pursues on the treadmill for one's self. The well being pursued when you skip that piece of cheesecake, and avoid the extra fatty piece of brisket.

Not amputate your arm and use gastric binding

No hysterical response at the Manhattan Project level has been justified to me.

Or, I bet, to the vast majority of those who have paid attention to this FARCE.

Obama buying into both the idea of a compulsory hysteria (of various kinds), and the faults of America as the basis for his gestalt as president is going to be iconic of 2008-2012.

TARP, Stimulus II, Health Care, Warming, all crises? All requiring the process of .. 'it's an emergency, listen to me and we'll sort it out later, but if I don't get what I need it's the end of the world (literally)'.

There is one crisis. It's variegated. But it is a crisis.

We have not even TALKED about the kind of response we need to generalized and specific attacks on our way of life by those who believe it ungodly, and believe it is their personal responsibility to ensure we change, or else. In the failure to remark on this crisis, Mr. Obama is not alone.

To respond to this we need a vibrant growing economy. STEP 1

To respond to this we need a military with the tools THEY need and unafraid to give the mortal enemy a fat lip. STEP 2

To respond to this we need a govt willing to speak out loud about touchy and difficult issues. STEP 3

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