Dear Amy,

As someone who has regularly watched Democracy Now for close to five years, the past week and a half from Copenhagen has been the most tedious, pointless, waste of time I have ever seen from that show. Even Naomi Klein's several appearences have been boring and if I never have to see or hear Bill McKibben again, it will be too soon.

Sometime late next week I will drop back in to see what you and the gang are up to, but, for now, I wish for you to have fun in Scandanavia because from what I can see you surely are not accomplishing much else.

Poet

My local "news" is reporting only on the number of people being arrested. They spend 20 seconds on this story.

This is one of the many ways they drain the energy out of a movement.

Until we have an honest media informing the masses we will continue to lose every single issue.

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Whoever controls the media controls the country. Period.

I echo Desmond Tutu's sentiment regarding Obama. Our president needs to step up the effort to get across the urgency of combating climate change. This issue is all or nothing, with time to act running out. It demands more than 'politics as usual'.

COP15 is just the Big Boys using the threat of climate disaster on developing countries to get what they couldn't at Seattle ten years ago ...

The PTB want carbon markets and derivatives that they can use to profit from and manipulate while holding other countries hostage ...

This whole exercise is the DOHA Round in sheep's clothes ... The developing countries could end up fleeced of even more self determination by the World Bank ...

This article is another proof that somebody is trying to sell us a bag of goods.

Climate refugees, no justice - no climate, Bishop Tutu, a candlelight vigil for children, melting ice statue (another proof of global warming) - all are another proof of a heavy sell to the Western liberal guilty consciousness.

I am surprised that there are no talks of "climate criminals", "climate aggressors", "climate-crimes-against-humanity", etc.

Instead of addressing specific climate issues, the call is for the rich countries, which are assumed to be "climate criminals", just to pay up.

And who is the Great Climate Satan?? I am sure, the progressive fifth column on this site will gladly point out.

IS NOT PLEASURE GOOD?

We live a doomed existence, which forces us to seek all pleasure and avoid all pain to block the reality that death is but a heart beat away. And as the vast majority feel they deserve more, to even the score, with much pleasure do they take all they can take, actually feel guilty if ever they miss an opportunity to take all they can take.

So the upper half of society, those with good jobs, nice savings and healthcare, they are the only ones who vote, the only ones that fund politicians, and Obama is doing exactly what they hired him to do. Namely:

(1) Keep the war going so the worldwide plunder of Empire USA will increase their wealth and plunder.

(2) Keep high finance bailed out so a bill market keeps investments and the dollar strong.

(3) Keep the capitalist medical industry unchanged. As no pleasure is there in being taxed so the lower half of society has decent healthcare.

(4) Keep polluting the environment. As no pleasure is there in being taxed to prevent a climate change that would reduce future populations of the lower class. For those of wealth and class feel that surely we have not enough water-front property and too many lower class people.

The people in the underdeveloped nations are not suffering from "climate change" they are suffering from malnutrition, disease and poverty. Most of which could be eliminated if those nations were allowed to develop modern sanitation, agriculture, energy and transportation. Most of the underdeveloped nations have been purposely looted for their raw materials while being denied access to technology to develop their nations.
The only fairy tale I see in this article is Goodman's belief that poor people in underdeveloped nations are concerned about climate change. Those people are dying from a lack of industrial development and modern technology.
Tony Blair is giving the keynote speech at this summit, Prince Phillip and the British Commonwealth (who own Obama) are so eager to ram through this treaty in order to address their pet issue-overpopulation. This is a genocide treaty PERIOD!

there is a perception in the wealthy countries, that the cost of dealing with climate change is manageable and less so than actually reducing carbon emissions. commerce and industry supported economists and climatologists support this view,as they are paid to do so, although not one has an inkling what the effects will necessarily be.
bjorn lomborg for one, has been proclaiming in the WSJ that malaria and HIV control today will globally save far more lives, and more cost effectively, than reducing carbon emissions.
unaddressed, from the cost perspective is the cost from a possible 10% reduction in rainfall/snow pack in the american southwest and south east; changing of the monsoons on which 1.5 billion survive;(the current reduction in the indian monsoon has caused a 20% reduction in agricultural output, and 50% of india's employed are involved in agriculture) the desertification of the only agriculturally productive areas of australia; the reduced rainfall in the tigris euphrates basin on which the population of 4 countries live; the desertification of spain and portugal; the occurrence of more massive hurricanes ( 2 of them in the usa alone - andrew and katrina cost more than 20 billion each; and the last big one in bangladesh took more than 100, 000 lives);the possible effects of melting of greenland ice on the gulf stream, the warming effect of which makes britain inhabitable; the turning of the subsaharan into saharan economies. the cost easily runs into 100's of billions even if only a few of these events recur or are caused by global warming.what is the cost to wyoming, idaho, montana and british columbia when the entire tourist economy falls apart as the entire forest is lost to the spread of pine beetle?

and what the developed nations should realize is - although the people may adapt to a 3 C rise in temp, can their ecosystems? - the food crops, the forests, the fauna and the fish - everything that makes life possible.

As to lives lost, one wonders if there are any estimates of lives lost from global upheavel, mass migration,a 2 fold spread of malaria, dengue and yellow fever, TB and dysentry infections; from typhoons, flooding and hurricanes; from the collapse of agriculture in large countries. haven't more civilizations collapsed due to environmental change than to external invasions?

so what bjorn lomborg will do is this - interview desparately poor in bangladesh in kenya and ask them what the priorities should be - prevent climate change or improve their health or nutrition.guess what the answer will be?

another insiduous and deliberate aspect of comparing the cost of alleviating climate change vs alleviating poverty is this - poverty has always been around; no rich nation is going to contribute any more to a poor nation to alleviate poverty;they had the last 50 etars to do so; this gets you off the hook. whereas if the problem is described as climate change, there are many regular folk in the europe and US who will prod the govts to enact legislation expensive to business and contribute funds to poor nations.
not that this should let poor nations off the hook. if countries can spend 5 - 20% of their gdp on their armies instead of poverty alleviataion - the question arises - don't they have money to waste? it makes me feel warm and proud to know my nation has a strong army when there is no food in my belly.

Thank you Amy, Democracy Now, and a few other oulets for keeping us informed on what is happening in Copenhagen.

I agree with Poet and OB.

I do watch "Democracy Now" daily, but I have about the same reaction as Poet's (9:06), the first comment on this thread; "Democracy Now" is wearing some New Clothes of its own, alas!

Amy seems to have consciously adopted corporate (mainstream) media stylistic conventions for DN, e.g. touting "exclusive!" interviews, using catchphrases and special (ugly) graphics, etc. I assume these trappings are employed to convince network-teevee-watching Normals that DN is a "real" teevee news show, too.

But I knew we'd be in trouble when she proudly announced that DN would be stuck in the middle of Copenhagen for the entire two freaking weeks of the conference-- "in the Bella of the Beast", as she's been coyly repeating.

DN clearly made the editorial decision that this event was sufficiently sociopolitically earth-shaking to warrant Total Immersion.

But Amy should've stayed in NY, and sent one of the shiny new "kids" on the DN anchor squad to file a daily report from Copenhagen if she really believes it deserves increased attention. Amy could still do remote interviews provided guests really had something to say.

Instead, she's filling time by pursuing relative molehills, e.g. the activist who was ejected from the conference. Authorities using aggressive and violent tactics to squelch dissent need to be exposed, but hovering around some low-level flunky politely escorting out a perplexed activist isn't giving The Whole World much to Watch.

I've been a fan of Naomi Klein; McKibben, not so much. But I quite agree that Naomi isn't holding my interest here. Maybe if things in Amerika weren't so abysmal, I could maintain enough World Citizen public spirit to connect to the procession of nationalities bouncing around the DN set.

I may be too tempest-fatigued to invest much attention to the daily tempests swirling in the Bella Center teapot.

· Yr Obd't Servant

Sioux Rose

America's conduct on the world stage is CRIMINAL in 3 obvious areas:

1. The nation uses 25% of the world's fossil fuels and thus is a direct contributor to the misery of others, that is, those nations already feeling the fluxes of climate destabilization.

2. Our nation has largely been at the helm of the derivatives scam (what Warren Buffet termed the "financial weapon of mass destruction") which has compromised large sectors of the global economy.

3. America serves as leading arms merchant to the world, and is the unapologetic champion of war, even when fixed pretexts are called for. There is not the slightest compunction for having caused the death of a probable million in Iraq, and now the killing machine is heading to Afghanistan on equally false pretenses.

American leadership in this climate event shows not the slightest hint of altering its delinquent course.

When I think of these items and the calamitous outcomes they consign so many to, it seems it will not be long before the nation is genuinely attacked, and this time, like The Boy Who Cried Wolf, it will be outsiders fed up with the "American way of life" and its nakedly exploitative exceptionalism that orchestrate the carnage. With our military overseas, and our own economy held up by thin strands, for all its glorious emphasis on defense, how protected do we remain? The constant acts that promise the undoing of others mean that our own nation has so much to answer and account for. And still there is no change in policy or behavior!

From the spiritual perspective, the best insurance policy comes from doing the right thing. America has trespassed upon this very Law and is not immune from paying a price. It sickens me to know that instead of ushering in meaningful remedial actions, the current president leads the nation to the inevitability of its own denouement, and it will not be pretty.

Poet, ivymaureen and I think OB

You are missing the point. As for Amy's broadcast, thank her for it. She is educating, teaching and doing what the main stream media are purposely not doing. She's right in the mix, too, as usual. You, are unappreciative... Thankyou Thank you Amy. And yeah, the money is important. They get to pay these countries for stealing what they took from them in the first place and for what they are taking now....

As for Ivy... what to hell are you talking about, you make no sense. Yes, these countries have been pilaged and raped for their resources. Why does that exclude them from suffering from Climate change... It's both. And your idea that they should follow in the foot steps of the rest of us.... rich nations, is ridiculous. The whole point of this is to have people and nations develop thru a different path. But maybe we should all be looking at living closer to the earth. This is the ultimate question. Should man be working so hard to seperate from the earth in his/her every day living. Pent houses donot allow for much in the way of being in touch with nature. Yet, some of those in the middle of the wilderness, sitting in their RV's or their ski lodges, are not in touch either. It's about learning what it takes to work with mother nature to make a living, right next to her.

It looks to me like the WTO Death Star America has landed in Carbonhagen and SubComandantette Clinton has dissembarked with an ultimatum from the Empire. Pre-emptive arrests, illegal detentions, even rumored secret trials and (hopefully) dropped charges are being used to eliminate the TV views of protest and substitute TV views of arrests. After the 2004 and 2008 RNC protests received the same formula, I'm wondering if the Empire has conducted FOCUS GROUPS to help fine tune disruption of any protests so that the public can't become involved? These folks seem obsessed with anyone interfering with their rigging of negotiations, elections, public knowledge of the truth, etc ... it's very disturbing how deeply illegal and unconstitutional our leadership have become. They have exceeded any and all expectations of tyranny, in my view. I think we all need to start becoming politically involved on a daily basis. This is the greatest threat to democracy we have ever confronted and we need to start to rise up. We need to brainstorm how to peacefully take back our democracy from the hands of these tyrants.

The Empire's new clothes are exactly the same as the old clothes. Unfortunately.