Something Rotten in Denmark?

Evidently there is much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in Copenhagen today, as the three main groups attending the “Kool Kids Konference” are all throwing major hissy fits. The Guardian reports:

The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN’s role in all future climate change negotiations.

The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.

The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as “the circle of commitment” – but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalised this week.

What a scandal and a hissing!

• Developing countries are upset because they will not be allowed to emit nearly as much carbon as the developed nations. Unfair!
• Developed nations are upset because this little secret plan got leaked. Unfair!
• And the United Nations is upset because it takes power and money (lots and lots and lots of money) out of their hands and places it elsewhere. Really unfair!

So what to do about this brouhaha? Well, I think the best-case scenario is if the representatives from the developing nations, the developed nations, and the United Nations all leave Copenhagen in a huff and have nothing more to do with such a stupid conference ever again.

Face it. The earth has been slowly warming since the end of the Little Ice Age back in 1850. Is some of that warming caused by human beings? Probably. Is much or most of it due to circumstances having nothing to do with human activity? Certainly. Is there anything we can do about it, regardless of cause? Precious little in the grand scheme of things, despite what the “scientists” are claiming.

And until the scientists at East Anglia can come up with a better excuse than, “The dog ate our homework” to explain why they can’t show any raw data, I say we scrap Copenhagen, scrap Kyoto, scrap the CRU, scrap NOAA/GHCN, scrap NASA/GISS, and start again.

It behooves all of us as human beings to live on this earth conscientiously. If I speak of “responsible stewardship” I’ll probably get branded as a wingnut born-again Christianist, but so what? We do need to be responsible stewards.

We also need things like fuel to power all the great inventions that allow us all to live in relative comfort and safety. That stewardship therefore also includes discovering things like reliable, large-scale renewable fuel sources; and until we find and develop those, responsible exploitation of the riches that lie beneath our own soil and on our own shores, rather than outsourcing our needs to countries which would rather see us all under sharia law, and which do their drilling in far less eco-friendly ways.

Global warming scams aside, if we are not responsible stewards, we may bequeath our children and grandchildren an environment as unpleasant to live in as their indebtedness from the cost of nationalized healthcare will be to live with. And we don’t need a conference in Copenhagen, Kyoto, or anywhere else to remind us of that.

UPDATE: HotAir suggests: “What this is really about is first-world nations getting last-minute cold feet at the thought of massive wealth transfers to some unreliable partners.”

Stoutcat