Copenhagen - makes you laugh

robtri

Just looking a bit on this last night, and the thing that made me laugh was that nearly every head of state or representitive is flying in to the conference and fly home afterwards, the majority of them on chartered/private flights.....

Considering that Plane flight is supposed to be the most enviromentally damaging way of travelling...... surely this makes a statement from these representitives on how little they care about the enviroment....

zagmund

What makes me laugh (a nervous laugh, maybe) is that there always seems to be 'climate change talks' involving the heads of state of loads of countries (more than 100 in this current set I gather) and at this stage I could almost write the script.

US - we're different, this doesn't apply to us
Europe - things must change, we have decimated the rest of the world for the last 200 years and *now* we realise that possibly we went a little far. Things must change, did we say this already ?
Ireland - arragh sure . . . we can talk about this but you don't actually think we're going to do this lads, do you ? There's got to be some derrogation we can pull out of the files for this one.
Pacific Islands - we're sinking, stop melting the icebergs.
China - we can't find our rivers any more, someone tell us to stop. When we stop, someone send us aid so that our population doesn't revolt/starve/turn communist again.
Much of Africa - the only things we can produce are polluting . . . and you want to stop us producing even this ? Our other asset is tourism and you want people to stop flying. You have got to be kidding.

Didn't we already do this in Buenos Aires, Kyoto, etc . . . ? The words 'gravy train' don't even come close to this from what I can see. I'm sure there are some good changes that come out of this, but as Joe Public looking on all I hear is rhetoric.

z

zagmund

Oh yes, and then there's the random solution generator as they come towards the end of discussions on the last day -

In (@rnd,40) years we will reduce emissions of (@choice,polutant_list) by (@rnd,20-40)%.

Whooop, whooop. We're done, where's the bar around here lads ?

z

Macha

robtri wrote: »

Just looking a bit on this last night, and the thing that made me laugh was that nearly every head of state or representitive is flying in to the conference and fly home afterwards, the majority of them on chartered/private flights.....

Considering that Plane flight is supposed to be the most enviromentally damaging way of travelling...... surely this makes a statement from these representitives on how little they care about the enviroment....

If you're going to be sensible about it, do you really expect the heads of governments to take days and some cases weeks to get to Copenhagen via train/boat? It's not practical and in the larger scheme of things, the carbon that they emit will hopefully be infinitely offset by the significant political progress they make towards binding emissions cuts.

I know that Gormley wanted to travel overland/sea but had other commitments that forced him to fly. I also know that it takes two days to get from Dublin to Copenhagen by train & ferry.

Judgement Day

Have some sympathy with the OP on this one - I don't think he was suggesting the Aussie Prime Minister should have travelled by boat and train but the use of Govt. jets and so forth from EU member Heads of States to reach Copenhagen sends out all the wrong signals. Incidentally, how did our own 'worthies' reach the conference?

auerillo

There is an irony in all the puffed up and self important heads of government flying to copenhagen in private jets and being chauffeured around everywhere in large black limousines with 8 cylinders doing +-7 mpg, all paid for by the very people they all scold and threaten with every form of punishment for daring to forget to turn a light of occasionally.

It reminds me a little of the "let them eat cake" remark, and I long for the time when politicians return to living like everyone else, and when the British PM strap hangs on the tube to get home in the evening.

Bob_Harris

What I find funny is the concept of man made global warming (or whatever they are calling it these days).

Judgement Day

Bob_Harris wrote: »

What I find funny is the concept of man made global warming (or whatever they are calling it these days).

What I find funny/sad is climate change deniers. What exactly is your agenda?

Macha

Bob_Harris wrote: »

What I find funny is the concept of man made global warming (or whatever they are calling it these days).

We have more than enough debate on this topic. Please do not drag this thread down that road as well.

auerillo

Judgement Day wrote: »

What I find funny/sad is climate change deniers. What exactly is your agenda?

What I find funny/sad are name callers! I guess in that world, where everything is polarised, one group hurl the name "deniers" and the other group hurl the name "credulouists" back at them.

How it advances anything, I am less certain.

mike65

It looks like they are going to fail either way, no one is yet so scared by the IPCC that they will give up local interests. Some "pro CCers" think no deal would be better than a bad one.

TITAN #1

There has always been a " the world is going to end tomorrow, repent repent" group.
Some guy pops up and says that "according to my calculations the world will end
next week"

Until recently they have been called Fundamental Christians.

This is all fine and dandy and so long as they dont hurt anyone, they can stand on their mountain top and wait for the end.

This group who call themselves Saviours of the Planet etc want everyone to go and live in caves, eat muesli from a sustainable source and die quietly.

Never never never never.........

TITAN #1

oh i feel better.

Macha

TITAN #1 wrote: »

There has always been a " the world is going to end tomorrow, repent repent" group.
Some guy pops up and says that "according to my calculations the world will end
next week"

Until recently they have been called Fundamental Christians.

This is all fine and dandy and so long as they dont hurt anyone, they can stand on their mountain top and wait for the end.

This group who call themselves Saviours of the Planet etc want everyone to go and live in caves, eat muesli from a sustainable source and die quietly.

Never never never never.........

I thought I was being clear when I said not to pull this thread off topic.

Infraction for ignoring mod warning.

Oh and the 'muesli' insult is by far the most unoriginal of the lot.

Akrasia

mike65 wrote: »

It looks like they are going to fail either way, no one is yet so scared by the IPCC that they will give up local interests. Some "pro CCers" think no deal would be better than a bad one.

It's all just a game to these people. the negotiators are hoping that the others will blink first. While everyone is waiting for everyone else to blink, we'll have drifted past the point of no return.


The irony is that if we had started to seriously tackle global warming when it was first discovered about 30 years ago we would probably have succeeded by now.

Every day they delay is a larger more rapid cut in emissions we'll need to negotiate at some point in the future (if we think human civilisation is worth saving that is)

Bob_Harris

taconnol wrote: »

We have more than enough debate on this topic. Please do not drag this thread down that road as well.

The title of the thread implies we discuss things about the Copenhagen which make us laugh.

For me the concept extracting hundreds of billions from "rich" nations and throwing it at third world nations while also capping carbon which will have drastic effects on economies and normal peoples lives while also pushing the growth of bio-fuels which will inevitably lead to mass starvation due to the savage price increase of food all based on the incomplete and flaky theory of man made climate global change warming (or whatever they are calling it these days) is HILARIOUS.

I believe I am keeping within the ethos of the thread.

Judgement Day wrote: »

What I find funny/sad is climate change deniers. What exactly is your agenda?

HA, I think the question should be what is your agenda? Do you want to become a warrior in the great war on climate change or something?

Or is your agenda just plain arrogance, the arrogance of man thinking it is significant enough to have caused climate change or that it has the ability to do anything about it?

Macha

Bob_Harris wrote: »

The title of the thread implies we discuss things about the Copenhagen which make us laugh.

<snip>

I believe I am keeping within the ethos of the thread.

Please read this forum's charter: no in-thread discussion of moderation.

You can discuss what makes you laugh about Copenhagen, I'm simply asking that this thread does not become another discussion about the validity of AGW.

Mozart1986

taconnol wrote: »

If you're going to be sensible about it, do you really expect the heads of governments to take days and some cases weeks to get to Copenhagen via train/boat? It's not practical and in the larger scheme of things, the carbon that they emit will hopefully be infinitely offset by the significant political progress they make towards binding emissions cuts.

I know that Gormley wanted to travel overland/sea but had other commitments that forced him to fly. I also know that it takes two days to get from Dublin to Copenhagen by train & ferry.

Were all the hotels booked up?

TITAN #1

Taconnol

Shame on you for abusing your power as a moderator and throwing out your warnings to those who disagree with you.
You obviously have a "GREEN " agenda and not prepared to listen to an alternative point of view.

Macha

Mozart1986 wrote: »

Were all the hotels booked up?

TITAN #1 wrote: »

Taconnol

Shame on you for abusing your power as a moderator and throwing out your warnings to those who disagree with you.
You obviously have a "GREEN " agenda and not prepared to listen to an alternative point of view.

No more nonsense, personal jibes or in-thread discussion of moderation.

The level of debate in this thread had better improve dramatically or it will be locked.

SLUSK

All politicians wanna take tax money from us in the free world and give it to ****ty third world countries.

They are traitors and should be in jail. Obama can go fu** himself.

Macha

Right. Due to a dearth of decent debate, this thread is locked. Pathetic.