So it looks as if its about nothing but money. All the high flying rhetoric and its just about money.

Two points come to mind that seem elemental.

1. We are dealing with the consequences of a conscious choice by the industrialized world to adopt "planned obsolescence" as a marketing strategy in 60s. This can and must be addressed.

2. Military arms production is a use of resources that is itself a metaphor for planned obsolescence in the extreme. It produces no positive value, is employed as mechanism for failure of human imagination in situations of conflict and short circuits all human potential, including those who enlist, including destruction of harvests, plantings, people, and now plutonium poisoning, in short, poison the future of the planet in every way.

Please don't yell at me but I think I'm Copenhagen'ed out. Two weeks on Democracy Now and two weeks here. Going into this did anyone think that anything meaningful would be done to cut greenhouse gases? It played out pretty much as anyone aware of how the world works would have assumed it would.

IMHO, we are run by sociopaths. To them money trumps all, life, the environment the very planet itself. They are simply unable to care about anything but power and money. Thats it power and money. You, me, their children and their grandchildren, the very Earth itself means nothing to them.

Duh DEMs are t'rowin the Series! Bounce duh Bums OUT!! Free again, in Twenty Ten!

"Individual" - individualism - are incredibly important concepts to contemplate. These are the symbols that inform or language and capacity to concieve of options.

Mayan greeting In Lakhe - I am another yourself

"My you acts on me as I act on it"- Martin Buber circa 1937

Hey, come on Johann:

"They didn't seal the deal; they sealed the coffin for the world's low-lying islands, its glaciers, its North Pole, and millions of lives."

Cool the hysteria, cool the rhetoric. We know the CRU stuff was rigged: we know the hockey stick was photoshopped! The mediaeval warmed and we didn't do it.

We know COP5 was all about cap-and-trade, Enron derivatives and other NWO shyster big money deals.

Now we have the big job of cleaning out the banks, our air, the rivers, the oceans and getting people back to work: getting Big-O to live up to his promises:

http://www.theyorkshirelad.ca/12loweringtheante/loweringtheante.html

And get the guys who caused it all in jail!

"The critics who say the real solutions are 'unrealistic' don't seem to realise that their alternative is more implausible still: civilisation continuing merrily on a planet whose natural processes are rapidly breaking down."

Try getting a drunk who thinks it "unrealistic" that he/she is an alcoholic to an AA meeting...

Impossible. They will continue drinking until premature death.

NC-Tom

I was thinking of The Corporation as well. That film is a great educator. There's enough material for five more documentaries in the DVD extras as well. It helps make sense of their actions if you think of corporations as psychopaths. Do not expect them to act from conscience or to be capable of imagining a future beyond the now. Do not expect them to have pity or self-reflection. Do not trust them, especially when they are smiling.

They're also kind of like Vampires if you ask me.

Sioux Rose

The absence of leadership, or should I say leadership endowed with love for mankind and clear vision, is so sickening that I cannot comment further on this sell-out to Mammon and as Old Goat defined it, essential rule by, for, and in favor of Mars, the endless-at-war state.

QUESTION: Is there an artist/cartoonist in our midst? If so, this would be a great scene to depict, and ideally to publish:

A military battalion pointing its latest weapons at an approaching tidal wave.
Caption: "Your Defense Dollars at Work!"

"Canada signed up to cut its emissions at Kyoto, and then increased them by 26 per cent – and there were no consequences. Copenhagen could unleash a hundred Canadas."

Maybe if the Bushies would have signed on to Kyoto, Canada and others would have cut their emissions too.

"Is a safe climate less important than a trademark?"

That depends on whether you're asking an ecologist or an economist

"These discarded ideas – and dozens more like them – show once again that man-made global warming can be stopped."

Forgot the most important one again--man-made global warming can be stopped by giving birth to less men (and women).

COPENHAGEN SPEECH: President Chávez, Venezuela

"Are we in a democratic world? Is the global system inclusive? Can we hope for something democratic, inclusive from the current global system?

What we are experiencing on this planet is an imperial dictatorship, and from here we continue denouncing it. Down with imperial dictatorship! And long live the people and democracy and equality on this planet!

There is a group of countries that consider themselves superior to us in the South, to us in the Third World, to us, the underdeveloped countries... the crushed countries, as if a train ran over us in history.

In light of this, it’s no surprise that there is no democracy in the world and here we are again faced with powerful evidence of global imperial dictatorship.

And another slogan calls for reflection. It is very in tune with the banking crisis that swept the world and still affects it, and of how the rich northern countries gave aid to bankers and the big banks. The U.S. alone gave, well, I lost the figure, but it is astronomical, to save the banks. They say in the streets the following: If the climate were a bank it would have been saved already.

And I think that’s true. If the climate were one of the biggest capitalist banks, the rich governments would have saved it.

The rich are destroying the planet. Do they think the can go to another when they destroy this one? Do they have plans to go to another planet? So far there is none on the horizon of the galaxy.

Kempf says the following, I’ll read it:

“We can not reduce global material consumption if we don’t make the powerful go down several levels, and if we don’t combat inequality...”

Reflect on the 500 million richest people, 500 million, this is seven percent, seven percent, seven percent of the world’s population. This seven percent is responsible, these 500 million richest people are responsible for 50 percent of emissions, while the poorest 50 percent accounts for only seven percent of emissions.

So, Mr. President, 60 percent of the planet’s ecosystems are damaged, 20 percent of the earth’s crust is degraded, we have been impassive witnesses to deforestation, land conversion, desertification, deterioration of fresh water systems, overexploitation of marine resources, pollution and loss of biodiversity.

The overuse of the land exceeds by 30 percent the capacity to regenerate it. The planet is losing what the technicians call the ability to regulate itself; the planet is losing this. Every day more waste than can be processed is released. The survival of our species hammers in the consciousness of humanity. Despite the urgency, it has taken two years of negotiations for a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, and we attend this event without any real and meaningful agreement.

The political conservatism and selfishness of the largest consumers, of the richest countries shows high insensitivity and lack of solidarity with the poor, the hungry, and the most vulnerable to disease, to natural disasters

The total income of the 500 richest individuals in the world is greater than the income of the 416 million poorest people. The 2.8 billion people living in poverty on less than $2 per day, representing 40 per percent of the global population, receive only 5 percent of world income.

When the Empire speaks of freedom; it’s the freedom to oppress, to invade, to kill, to annihilate, and to exploit. That is their freedom, and Rousseau adds this saving phrase: “Only the law liberates.”

There are countries that are hoping that no document comes out of here precisely because they do not want a law, do not want a standard, because the absence of these norms allows them to play at their exploitative freedom, their crushing freedom.

Can a finite earth support an infinite project? The thesis of capitalism, infinite development, is a destructive pattern, let’s face it.

Cease the aggressions and the wars! We the peoples of the world ask of the empires, to those who try to continue dominating the world and exploiting us.

No more imperial military bases or military coups! Let’s build a more just and equitable economic and social order, let’s eradicate poverty, let’s immediately stop the high emission levels, let’s stop environmental degradation and avoid the great catastrophe of climate change, let’s integrate ourselves into the noble goal of everyone being more free and united.

Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, we are capable of not making this Earth the tomb of humanity. Let us make this earth a heaven, a heaven of life, of peace, peace and brotherhood for all humanity, for the human species."

http://hondurasoye.wordpress.com/

Read Dieoff.org

What would happen if we started acting on these "practical ideas"?

If we did not wait for our "leaders" and made impactful changes on our own?

"In terms of immediacy of action...reducing meat consumption clearly is the most attractive opportunity (to reduce global warming). Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, UN Chair on Climate Change

Meat-eaters contribute 7 times more to greenhouse gases than do vegans.

Can we let go of our emotional attachment and defensiveness and put down the cheeseburger?

Are we progressives progressing, or are we just complaining?