Spinning The China Climate Talk Failure
You really can’t blame her for trying to put – excuse the expression since it seems to have become cliche – lipstick on a pig, but Nancy Peolsi’s attempt to change China’s mind concerning curbing its CO2 seems to have been an abject failure.
Pelosi called them “hopeful”. That’s diplo-speak for “absolutely nothing substantial changed from the previously held position”. The fact that they even saw her would be deemed as “hopeful” but certainly not substantive.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) sums up the trip:
“It’s business as usual for China,” said Mr. Sensenbrenner, the ranking Republican on the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming. “The message that I received was that China was going to do it their way regardless of what the rest of the world negotiates in Copenhagen.”
“Their way” consists of giving lip service to curbs while demanding the “rich nations” pay the freight for curbing such emissions in China (and the rest of the “emerging nations”). China refuses to jeopardize its economic growth for something it obviously believes is much less of a threat than others do. And why should they when it appears the upcoming conference plans on exempting them anyway?
We, on the other hand, seem bound and determined to try to do what would be tantamount to the task of cleaning up the ocean up by putting economy wrecking filters only on our shore line. Little or no effect. China and India share similar philosophies on this question and are emerging as the number one and two emitters on the planet. I think they’re right. The threat, if there is one, is minimal at best. Wrecking one’s economy to hopefully make a less that one degree Celsius change at some distant point in the future (maybe) seems to me to be the height of folly.
But that’s certainly where our politicians seem to be headed. And, to compound the problem, they’ve adopted a “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” philosophy, ignoring the 10 year cooling trend torpedo as well as the “China and India” aren’t going to play along” torpedo.
No one wants dirty air or dirty water – no one. But this hysterical reaction to what seems to be a natural earth cycle and the human hubris which claims we both effect and can change that cycle is going to put us all in the poor house unless some sanity (like in China) prevails.
~McQ