Talking Of The Planet

Well, what a colossal waste of time, money and effort that was!

The BBC's Richard Black gives a summary here and it makes for fairly pessimistic reading.

The fact that our two favourite global bullies - that's the US explicitly and China implicitly - essentially brokered their own deal has to bring it home to the other countries that their own economic and military status is of no consequence. If you turn up to the party armed with your favourite six-shooter and the Americans and Chinese roll in on gold plated nuclear missiles then you know you're in trouble.

And what of the deal? Or non-binding pact that fails to deliver on any key point and, as the name 'non-binding' suggests, has only been noted by the delegates? Well, there you have it. They agreed nothing bar some money for aid and even that is iffy long-term. These guys will have sea-water from the melted ice caps lapping round their ankles before they will believe that we can't actually turn the whole planet into a fucking supermarket and get away with it.

The fundamental problem is that we can't run the planet based on the capitalist ideal. We are already consuming and polluting more than the planet can regenerate or repair. And if the long-term goal is to get developing countries standard of living up to our consumption levels then clearly we need a rethink.

But if our leaders won't deviate from this doctrine, neo-conservative or various reformed flavours thereof, or even discuss the possibility of an alternative then there appears to be little hope of progress on any kind of global solution for, what is after all, a global problem. Clearly there's still too much money to be made.