As the ever-quotable Tom Friedman of the New York Times points out, Bush has left Obama with two ginormous deficits; one economic, the other related to climate. In an interview, Friedman said:
We basically did nothing for eight years, and in fairness to Bush we
didn't do much in the eight years previous, either, to mitigate climate
change. The tragedy is that we've got two deficits to overcome. We need
people to care about both of those deficits.
True. And it's tough just to pay attention. For those interested in this issue, I highly recommend an aggregation site called The Daily Climate, which does an excellent job of assembling the top twelve or so stories about climate every day, under categories such as "Solutions," "Consequences," "Causes," and so forth. It's a good site, and it's free…but it's not easy to face with your morning coffee.
Speaking of mornings…here's another way to look at the issue. The election was a dream, but now we wake up again to the chaos around us. Courtesy of the hard-working, gifted, and generous Steve Brodner of The New Yorker, among many other publications.
Find more at his drawger page, here.
Kit Stolz 
Friedman has a lot of nerve to be going on about climate change after he was one of the most influential cheerleaders for out-of-control global capitalism for the last decade. He really is shameless.
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our environment has really taken a turn for the worse in the last eight years. Hopefully our new administration will keep it’s word about environmental reform.
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I hope you’re faring okay in our latest Santa Ana fire outbreaks.
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For once, Ventura County has been spared by fire during this Santa Ana condition…the weather has been pleasantly warm, a little windy, but not especially threatening…I feel a little guilty enjoying it as others in the region face devastation.
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Kit
You are right, not just 8 years, but 16 years, and actually, nobody really KNEW until about two years ago when the IPCC report came out and confirmed everything.
In keeping with my PR guerilla wake up call work, I have started a “Class action lawsuit against world leaders for allowing global warming being mulled at the International Criminal Court in the Hague”
it’s on Treehugger and Peak Oil and Kunstlercast now, and this new one, and soon a Dutch newspaper will be writing about this quixotic impossible lawsuit.
http://209.157.64.200/tag/*/index?more=2127663
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Here is the Reaters story:
Class action lawsuit against global warming puts world leaders on notice
Reaters News Service
Nov 06, 3008
Think Don Quixote had it hard tilting at windmills? Now comes climate activist Danny Bloom with a class action lawsuit against all current world leaders for allowing global warming to proceed apace, and he’s asking for US1$billion in damages to be paid to future generations of human beings — “if there are any”, he deadpans.
Let’s check that again: Bloom is filing his lawsuit at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, the Netherlands, asking for “US$1 billion dollars in damages on behalf of future generations of human beings on Earth.”
Bloom said he is filing the lawsuit with the help of a team of pro bono international lawyers to sue — according to the proposed lawsuit’s language — “all world leaders for intent to commit manslaughter against future generations of human beings by allowing murderous amounts of fossil fuels to be harvested, burned and sent into the atmosphere as CO2, causing possible apocalyptic harm to the Earth’s ecosystem and the very future of the human species.”
That’s strong language, and while it’s likely not one giant step for humankind, Bloom says it’s another “public wake-up call about the dangers of climate change and global warming pose for the future of the human species.”
The 60-year-old climate activist is not kidding. While asking for damages of US$1 billion, Bloom says he and his team plan to donate any damages granted by the court to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — winner of the Novel Prize for Peace in 2007, along with green campaigner Al Gore — and other groups fighting climate change — “before it is too late”.
The lawsuit, if is accepted by the court, will be the first of its kind to lobby for the welfare and very existence of future generations of human beings, according Bloom.
“This is not about money,” according to a press release issued by Bloom’s legal team in Boston. “This is about trying to protect future generations of mankind, humankind, and a positive judgment in this case will help prod more people to take the issues of climate change and global warming more seriously. We fully intend to make all world leaders of today responsible for their actions in the present day and age.”
When asked what the likelihood of such a class action lawsuit being heard by the court in the Hague, a representative of the legal team said: “It’s up to the court to decide whether this case has any merit. We fully expect the court to agree to at least hear the case and make a responsible and measured decision later.”
The ICC currently has 108 member nations and was set up in 1998. It began hearing cases in 2002 and was established as a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression, although it cannot currently exercise jurisdiction over the crime of aggression.
Don Quixote, move over. A global class action lawsuit against global warmings is now making headlines around the world, and not everyone is laughing. Bloom admits that many people “are laughing”, but insists that he is “sincere in trying to issue this wake up call about the dangers of climate change”.
A psychiatrist at a teaching hospital in the midwest said, when asked about this lawsuit: “What an ingenious idea. Although I have
no knowledge about whether this could ever have any practical merit,
it certainly has psychological merit. One of the main psychological challenges of climate change is to make it seem more immediate and important to people.”
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Sue world leaders $1 billion for global warming?
http://content.usatoday.com/topics/article/Places,+Geography/Countries/Poland/05ty73waMN2vs/1
Kit
The Reuters blog story came out today. see headline above and google it.
In a global stunt, a U.S. environmental activist is poised to lodge a $1 billion damages class action lawsuit at the International Criminal Court (ICC) against all world leaders for failing to prevent global warming.
Activist and blogger Dan Bloom says he will sue world leaders for “intent to commit manslaughter against future generations of human beings by allowing murderous amounts of fossil fuels to be harvested, burned and sent into the atmosphere as CO2″.
He intends to lodge the lawsuit in the week starting Sunday, Dec. 6.
The prosecutor’s office at the ICC, the world’s first permanent court (pictured below right) for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, says it is allowed to receive information on crimes that may fall within the court’s jurisdiction from any source.
“Such information does not per se trigger a judicial proceeding,” the prosecutor’s office hastened to add.
The question is: will or should the prosecutor take on the case?
One might argue in defence that world leaders are in fact trying to impose climate-saving measures. In Vienna last year, almost all rich nations agreed to consider cuts in greenhouse emissions of 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. Talks on a new climate treaty will be held in Poznan, Poland, from Dec. 1-12.
Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N. Climate Panel, says the cuts are needed to limit temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius, an amount seen by the EU, some other nations and many environmentalists as a threshold for “dangerous” climate change.
Granted then that there is growing consensus that climate change poses a real threat, is it not only world leaders who are failing to prevent global warming?
Perhaps the global collective of individuals, governments and industry is to blame and the ICC lawsuit a valid publicity stunt in the constant battle to raise awareness and prompt action?
Because it’s action we need — and now, right?
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