Obama warned that a failure to address the problem could create an “irreversible catastrophe.” Obama said time is “running out” to fix the problem but that, “we can reverse it.”
It happens every autumn: midtown Manhattan becomes the motorcade capital of the world. Each foreign leader in town has a convoy of vehicles. Some of them, like President Obama’s motorcade, are 20-to-30 vehicles in length. It’s so long – it seems that when the front of it reaches the U.N., the back end is still back at his hotel.
Exacerbating the annual exercise in diplomatic gridlock are police actions, blocking intersections and closing streets for security to facilitate motorcade movements. It renders countless other vehicles immobile while waiting for motorcades to pass, their engines idling but still blowing exhaust into the midtown air.
Does it undermine the goal of the climate change summit and cause the pledges of environmental concern to ring hollow?
When it comes to greenhouse-gas emissions, Energy Secretary Steven Chu sees Americans as unruly teenagers and the Administration as the parent that will have to teach them a few lessons.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States will urge world leaders this week to launch a new push in November to rebalance the world economy, but there are doubts national governments will bow to external advice.
Much hope has been invested in Barack Obama‘s ability to strike a new course for the US following eight years of Bush administration unpopularity. Yet many in the US and abroad are impatient with the pace of progress under the Obama administration. The president made the rounds on five news talkshows on Sunday as he pressed his policies and vision, preparing for what is likely to be a difficult week.
Besides the ongoing battle over healthcare, this week sees two showdowns between Europe and the US that will reveal further slippage in American global leadership. The first showdown comes today at a UN special session on climate change in New York City; the second will come at the end of the week at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, where America and Europe will butt heads over financial system reforms designed to ensure that the AIGs of the world can never again cause an economic collapse.
Europe has been increasingly critical of America’s failures to live up to its global responsibilities. The US is not only the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases but is by far the largest per capita emitter of carbon and other pollutants. China comes close to the US in terms of total carbon emissions, but it has four times more people, who each belch far less individually. Europe, while having much the same high living standard, has an “ecological footprint” that is only half of America’s, since Europe has taken leadership in implementing renewable technologies and conservation practices.
I like the church sign! Heh!
Me too. I can’t tell you how much cash it took to put up those letters.
BZ
Sad part about the sign, there is no way in HELL they’re gonna repent…
I could only HOPE, TF. . .
:^)
BZ
Again, more of the same BS.
All these power-grabbing do-gooders are trying to “save the Earth” (at your expense, of course. Not theirs).
But the Earth doesn’t need saving. It will continue rotating around the sun. The Earth will slowly heal itself no matter what we do to it.
On the other hand, our civilization may fall. Our species may perish. But that’s been going on for millenia, without technology’s help. Just ask the Cro-Magnen, or the T-Rex – if you can find one to ask.
So, who are these EnviroNazis REALLY trying to save? I contend that it’s themselves and their power base, including the rest of us as their slaves.
B Woodman
III-per
This comment has been removed by the author.
BZ said: “Mr Obama believes that anything and everything wrong with the environment is the…responsibility of the United States.”
Well, not so much. What he DID say was: “Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world’s problems alone. Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.”
He’s talking about SHARED responsibility, as opposed to the “my-dick-is-bigger-than-yours” pigheadedness of Shrub. I agree that cap-&-trade is a bullshit idea; it won’t work, and it doesn’t address the problem. But Obama never said that it was the responsibility of America ALONE to tackle global warming.
Simple science that is ignored by the moonbats discredits the man-made global warming hoax. If man is responsible for global warming then how come it happened on Mars and Jupiter at the same time, and then the cooldown started about the same time? It was 100% solar activity.
It may be 100% solar activity. I’m not a solar scientist, nor a climatologist. In any case, that’s not the same thing as saying that carbon emissions are greenhouse gases, and that greenhouse gases lead to global warming. The debate isn’t about whether it is or isn’t man-made; it’s about whether or not we can stop putting greenhouse gases into our atmosphere.
LOL @ the Church sign.
Btw, I think Cap and Tax will have a very hard time getting through Senate especially if anything is passed on health reform.
Yes let us have bureaucrats ‘re-balance’ the world economy!
What a fine idea?
Now what was that about the lack of Federal Reserve response to the market crisis? The regulations that pressured banks to give money to those with No Income No Jobs or Assets (NINJA loans)? Or the SEC ‘oversight’ on so many financial institutions that misrepresented themselves?
Ahhh… such fine bureaucracy.
It did exactly what it was told to do.
Witness the lack of ‘oversight’, the pushing of bad economic policy and the resultant mess of the economy that was already having problems with the federal government going insolvent over SSN, Medicare, FHA loans… why, yes, lets have that on a GLOBAL SCALE!
Say, have these swell bozos ever disentangled the few hundred Red Mafia front organizations used globally to penetrate the Bank of NY in the 1990’s?
No?
Or the penetration of the SWIFT system by organized crime?
Hmmm… no…
A handful of prosecutions of fallguys when there are dozens of actors implicated that still go free.
Just why is it we are supposed to trust these people?
Wha…?!? “The regulations that pressured banks to give money to those with No Income No Jobs or Assets.” ARe you shitting me? It was a LACK of regulation that allowed the wall street turd-gobblers to cook the books on these crooked loaqns in the first place!! Geez, do your research, man! Then, by implying the SEC “oversite” was BAD, you actualy make the case for a greater beurocracy! Well, which is it: more bigger government, or less? Make up your mind.
And, if your paranoia can create a “red mafia” that penetrated the NY bank, maybe YOU should be in charge, since you seem to know everything.
You must be mistaken. How can the Second Coming possibly be wrong about anything?
These global warming idiots bug the shit outta me…A clue for mr Obama…Global warming is also known as “SEASONS” look at history and realize the earth gets warmer during the summer, it cools off during winter and no matter how much he thinks he is the messiah, he can’t fix that….
Cap and tax is probably going to pass, so is Obamacare and then in 2010, when all the demorats and RINO’s are unemployed and shaking their heads like the last repubs are doing now, wondering what the hell happened they can look back to these BS policies…
After Obama’s speech at the UN, look out for a terrorist attack in the near future. Obama has admitted guilt for everything from global warming to Israel and since guilt has been established Islam demands punishment. His Islamic buddies now have a weak president who has opened the door for retribution..
Whereas its the denials of the Republitards that bug the shit outta me. “Seasons.” Very funny numbnuts, but if you’d bother to read the news today you’d see that ice sheets and glaciers are melting even FASTER than originally thought. Its happening in Greenland, Antartica, everywhere. You end up sounding like some italian nobleman telling Columbus you won’t finance him because “The world, she’s-a flat!”
Why, yes, I have researched these things. My Red Mafia Posts:
Red Mafia and its connectivity,
my view from the other side looking at the BNL and BCCI problems for D and R party members,
Of Clinton and Kosovo looking at the long and sorry history of the US involvement in Yugoslavia as it broke up,
The other source of change in Kenyan politics note the ‘Artur Brothers’ and Saudi oil family connections,
New fronts in the GWOT,
Natural Gas, Crime and Destruction,
After the fall of TransWorld Commodities,
Connecting the dots between the Candidates,
Currency and Corruption,
A taste of Oil For Food and some of its chefs,
Russia and Iran via the dots,
More dot connecting,
General organized crime/terrorist money movement systems as its a good place to understand how modern banking doesn’t stop black market currency movement.
Would you like my terrorism post list, too? Its a bit longer…
Anonymous: apparently the good AJ has provided a lengthy list of citations for your leisurely perusal.
BZ
Touche’ LMAO
Can we get all the global warming deniers in one room (like this one) and do a holocaust deny on them?
LOVE THE SIGN, BZ.
as for Obama and GLOBAL WARMING?…
I originally read incorrectly GLOBAL WARNING..that fits him better.
On AGW a good article at Universe Today on the Maunder Minimum, which was influential in the ‘Little Ice Age’ which, itself, was a multi-vector phenomena, including increased volcanic activity in the latter part of the cycle (Krakatoa,Laki, Huaynaputina, Kuwae, and the worst of that period was Tambora).
Climate is driven by the Sun, of course, and a minor hiccup for a few decades is nothing to Sol, but has long-term consequences on Earth. After that the long term driver would be plate position on the planet, and we have only seen large swings in climate with the formation of the land bridge between the Americas and the division of the global ocean into Pacific and Atlantic with cyclical ice ages only after that formation. Then comes volcanic activity, with the megavolcanoes of Yellowstone, Toba and Long Valley being just a few of the known structures. The most worrying of those is Yellowstone, at present, due to the sudden increase in earthquake activity there, uplift of the central caldera (as seen in the shift of Yellowstone Lake in its basin), and a number of wildlife deaths due to sudden outgas events. Still the smaller bethren we know have a major role to play in climate on the sub-1,000 year scale.
We have been very lucky to have our Nation start during the ‘Little Ice Age’ as it meant lower crop yields in Europe and influenced immigration patterns. Coming out of that period allowed US agriculture to expand, especially in the early to mid-20th century with the highest temps in the US seen in the 1930’s. Coming out of the secondary highs of the 1980’s has seen a decrease in mid-oceanic sub-20m temps during the 1990’s and heading into the 21st century, plus the expansion of polar ice during the winter further south than has been seen in recorded history going back to the 1890’s. Watching ‘Deadliest Catch’ has seen commentary on that and that their fathers and grandfathers had never seen ice as far south as last year.
You cannot stop climate change: it is always changing.
If you want nice, static, high temps, then stop the plates from rushing around the surface, remove the land bridge of the Americas and you will see nice, Cretaceous level temps return… along with the flooding of continental interiors to allow nice, vast shallow oceans to absorb lots of heat.
That isn’t happening for a few million years yet.
Otherwise keep an eye on Sol and one on Yellowstone, for the last two eruptions there point to something bad brewing up for us.
What I find really amusing about this whole global warming is that it’s mostly Right-Wing Religious Freaks who are against it or don’t believe it.
When you ask them why they don’t believe they respond, “There’s NO SIENCTIFIC FACTS to support it.”
I laugh my ass off at this because I would love to see some SIENCTIFIC FACTS that there’s a GOD.
Global Warming, I see nothing wrong with taking care of the place I live in.
Now as to regulation there have been a few financial analysts who have looked at the role of DC ‘regulation’ and what those on the Left call ‘too little regulation’, and James Pethokoukis has a good article on that. That Leftist ‘lack of regulation’ has been around for awhile, and in this case the CRA and its 1990 add-ons by Congress take a good part of the blame (along with parts of the tax code that subsidizes home ownership). The problem of subsidies is clear: they cause whatever is subsidized to be used in an uneconomical fashion. Be it sugar, milk or wheat in the US or gasoline in Iran and China, the problem remains the same (and if you want to start addressing sweetners in the US diet, eliminating US farm subsidies would go a long way to help).
So that ‘lack of regulation’ was regulation in and of itself, but one the Left likes… thus not seen as ‘regulation’ at all. It encouraged those that could not afford homes to purchase them on marginal credit. The Bank of Boston (if memory serves), just in the past year when the meltdown in the home mortgage market was in full swing, was pressured by financial regulators to continue giving loans out to those who couldn’t afford it or have their credit worthiness hit at the federal level. Banks large and small have been hit by this problem from the federal level in which NOT providing such lones gets the institution a POOR rating. That is a bad regulation and needs to go.
If one cannot say what the parameters are for when regulations are counter-productive or just plain useless and should be removed from the books, then you are stuck with ever more ‘regulation’. Yet the answer to bad regulations is always, and I do mean always, more regulation. The airlines got deregulated and we have witnessed a huge drop in the cost of airfare from the 1970’s to present. Likewise ending the Bell monopoly has been a boon to consumers. Yet breathe the words: dismantle the Federal Reserve or let American taxpayers run it is anathema in politics. The same goes with Freddie and Fannie… in fact both of those lobbied for just the sorts of bad regulation that drove bad loans out the door that got us into this mess. Either those institutions (under federal auspices) should be removed as institutions since they have corrupted the process they were supposed to safeguard, or should be sold to the US taxpayers ONLY and all federal backing removed from them. So much as whisper that, however, and you are deemed a ‘cook’ for wanting to have corrupt institutions SHUT DOWN or REMOVED from politics.
Heaven forbid.
Actually cleaning up the government so that it might get less corrupt.
Can’t do that now, can we?
They should revoke the church’s tax exempt status. Obama is being too nice to the right. Bush used heavy handed tactics to quell dissent. Obama is trying to have a kumbaya moment with the Republicans that will never come to pass.
While still unconvinced that global warming is the threat that the left says it is, I’d like to see less pollution and also I’d like to see us stop importing oil from Saudi Arabia and other nations that want to do us harm. Make no mistake, the hous of Saud is not our friend. The illiterate masses would not hate America if not for the propoganda foisted on them by their rulers.
Maybe it would cost more to drive, but cleaner air and water would make it worth it. We could never eliminate the need for petroleum, but we could reduce it greatly.
Heck Arizona could be the Saudi Arabia of Solar.
Tim: Wow. You bring up a VERY interesting point. Personally, I would like to REMOVE the “tax-exempt” status of ALL religions and their investments and placements.
Touche.
BZ
I am all for this type of clean energy and note that the ones who make it difficult are the utilities. The publicly regulated utilities. When your main stumbling block to getting clean power is getting regulator buy-in, you have got a problem. The numbers, economically and in an engineering sense, have already been done by Gerard K. O’Neill’s Princeton group back between 1968-72 with then current technology. Unfortunately we decided not to exploit our technological base and create a new, clean industrial base.
Which would have employed thousands, tens of thousands of people. I am all for getting industry and electrical production out of the biosphere because it is cheaper, more economical, safer and less hazardous to the biosphere to do it in the vacuum of space. The energy is cheap, abundant and will stay around as long as the sun does, which is 4 billion years or so more. This could have been incentivized, like we did with the aircraft industries back in the ’20s and ’30s, which got us our modern aerospace industry without much government input beyond airmail contracts.
As multiple mainstream and fringe religions have demonstrated that they prefer to use tax-exempt status as a cloak of secrecy and a shield against inquiry, that status should go when they have demonstrated that they are unable to be forthcoming for those doing criminal activity. Gather in your neighborhood homes and worship: its free. Abuse of the public trust under tax exempt status is reason to lose the exemption and be open to public and open auditing. I don’t like it for the Baghwan, the Catholic Church, Wahhabi mosques funded by KSA, indeed any overseas government funding religion in the US I don’t like at all. Charities must have open books – so should religious institutions.