The turning point, history may record, was the duck moment. It was around midnight on Thursday at the crucial United Nations climate talks in Montreal, Canada, when the chief United States negotiator, Harlan Watson, threw a wobbly.
Fearing that a Canadian proposal for an international dialogue on combating global warming was really a covert attempt to drag the US into binding negotiations, he walked out. But not before making the memorable retort: “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.”
That prompted an imaginative piece of direct action by Phil Clapp, the president of the US National Environmental Trust. On Friday morning his team scoured Montreal shops for rubber ducks, and within hours the little yellow creatures were ubiquitous in the conference centre.
They were paraded by environmentalists, popped up in ministers’ top pockets, and even made an appearance on the US delegation’s table. The Americans, after being harangued and vilified all week, were finally embarrassed.
There’s a lot more to the article; but, this certainly is the funniest bit. I’ll trust Bush’s flunkies to show up even for non-binding negotiations when and if they really do.
They did threaten to walk out if they let Clinton speak, the same way China always complains when some Taiwani is around.
Notice how many times this article uses words like might and perhaps when talking about the science. A big improvement. No mention is made of countries that have backed out of Kyoto. Tony Blair has backed out already, and so has Italy. Russia may be next.
AB CD – The only reason that other countries have backed out is because they realize that without the cooperation of the USA, one of the top world polluters, the whole program to reduce greenhouse gasses is useless. Yes, the program involves economic issues, and that is the ONLY reason the US government, which is completely controlled (for now) by corporations, has not participated. So other countries have backed off because they see that the program is a waste of time if the major culprit will not cooperate.
And when it comes to a subject as important as global warming, ‘might’ and ‘could’ are much heavier words that in than in their use in other contexts. The problem is that if the ‘could’ becomes true, then there will be great suffering amongst the world general population (which you apparently couldn’t care less about), so action needs to be taken to remove the ‘might’ from the possibility.
If you see a puddle under your car, and it is oil, and you think that the engine ‘might’ eventually freeze up, wouldn’t you try to get rid of the leak? Or would you continue driving and hope that it lasts until you can stick someone else with your problem (like our current perverted leader is doing with everything in America).
What arrogant (and ignorant) Americans like you (AB CD) fail to realize is that the participation in international programs like this are in the best interest of America in the long run, because America has started it’s great decline in world importance (under the utterly and completely corrupt and incompetent leadership of Bush), and that only by some semblance of global participation does America have ANY hope for the future.
I don’t expect you to read this, because you are obviously too brain washed to have a real oppinion, but here is the best article that I have seen recently concerning americas future influence in the world:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051212/schell
I saw a headline that an asteroid might hit in 30 years and destroy everything. Should we spend hundreds of billions of dollars if not trillions for a global defense shield? You make it seem like it’s some sort of trivial problem. What if letting all countries develop their economies in full means you get to a new technology faster? By the way, if the US signs on, then they are not the biggest ‘culprit.’ The smaller countries that don’t have to do anything will be bigger emitters, but I guess it’s no fun to hold protests in China.
Speaking of brainwashed, Awake, your comment is practically a conglomeration of the various arguments and doom-and-gloom predictions liberals have been spouting for a few decades now (none of which have come to pass as predicted, by the way), right down to the unnecessary and inflamatory insults of anyone with an opposing viewpoint. Not that you may not be correct in the end, but in the meantime you may want to try for a less alienating debate style. Promotes better acceptance from the other person if you ever get to say an “I told you so.”
🙂
Justin — if you’re going to wax pedantic about debate, please learn about statements of attainder. You might be called upon to prove some of what you believe. Maybe even a bit more history than currently offered by Walt Disney.
But, then, we’re back to rubber ducks.
When I see everything that man does, I have to think that something is going on. To use Awake’s analogy, when you see the puddle of oil under the car, you think of what can go wrong with the car. But from another perspective, would you think about what that oil can do to your environment? Oil’s a nasty thing to get in the water table, not to mention what it can do to your health. (yes, I’m generalizing)
Which is better? Should we acknowledge that we may be causing problems with all the things that humankind is doing? Should we deny it totally and keep up the status quo? The sooner we find a middle ground and actually figure it out using unbiased research, the better to counteract it if it exists… because this is surely one thing we can’t have takebacks on.
You’re absolutely right, Moss. My apologies. I shouldn’t have made statements about a quasi-defined group of people without specific historical evidence to support my generalized claims. My bad. (Although I did concede that those beliefs are possibly true).
So, next time I’ll just follow the examples of others and simply insult my arbitrarily defined group of people and we’ll all be good to go.
🙂
By the way, I never mentioned that I find the duck hilarious.
Hey silent spring didnot happen and it wont. some people cant stand prosperity.
what that oil can do to your environment?
Where do you think the oil is coming from? Strangely the same people who are complaining about all the problems from using this oil tend to be the sdame ones who think oil is running out, so theie problem should be solved without Kyoto.
Wow AB CD. Your comment (#10) is amazingly ignorant, even from you.
OIl does not belong in the water table and there is a finite supply of oil.
If not solved by Kyoto (or similar), then WHO?
I’m 67 years young and I remember when you couldn’t even see Pittsburg or Cleveland. I remember visiting my aunt who lived near a double railroad crossing and there was ALWAYS a coating of coal dust on everything and it was a constant job cleaning. None ever died from respiratory problems. There were no catalytic converters or emission
standards.
However, my aunt’s first husband died at that railroad crossing because in those days, flashing lights and the gates that come down were rare.
Have you visited Pittsburg or Cleveland recently? I would say we have come a long way in my lifetime.
When they include China in the kyota, then maybe we’ll talk.
If oil is finite, then you think it’s going to run out and people will eventually stop using oil. Then why bother with Kyoto if it’s going to happen anyway?
AB CD. Um, ah……..
Interesting point.
saxking20
Interesting point. Unfortunately not quite true. People did die from respiratory illnesses100, 50, 25, years ago and even today. Usually because health care was either not affordable or consisted of a GP only. Most deaths caused by such respiratory illnesses were not tracked as they are today by the CDC. Autopsies were seldom performed. Secondly, the life expectancy of the average American was much lower in the industrial cities like Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Birmingham, Gary, Akron, Trenton, Houston, Los Angles, and a thousand other towns and cities. And that was even before cigarette smoking and auto emissions became so common after WWII.
The best examples of what smoke pollution can do was seen during the early 1950s and into the 1960s in London England when the word “smog” was coined. Thousands of people died as the smoke from coal fires became trapped in a fog. For days the air became more and more toxic. A 67 yr old should remember the newspaper headlines. The same thing also happened regularly in Pittsburgh.
Yes, Cleveland and Pittsburgh are much cleaner today. The polluters though, have pulled up and left town. Once steel making centers, the blast furnaces are gone, the coke ovens are torn down, and the coal fired steam trains are no more. The automobile traffic, while many times heavier, is much much cleaner. The rivers have made a comeback from the toxic sewers that flowed through the cities.
The problem with waiting for the oil to run out is that by then it will be too late to save the planet. At the current rate, that great carbon dioxide sponge, the Amazon Basin, will be almost completely cut down. We will literally drown in our own CO2.