Self Portrait XIV

"The telephone blasted Peter Fallow awake inside an egg with the shell peeled away and only the membranous sac holding it intact. Ah! The membranous sac was his head, and the right side of his head was on the pillow, and the yolk was as heavy as mercury, and it rolled like mercury, and it was pressing down on his right temple and his right eye and his right ear. If he tried to get up to answer the telephone, the yolk, the mercury, the poisoned mass, would shift and roll and rupture the sac, and his brains would fall out."
--Tom Wolf; "Bonfire of the Vanities"


The planet indeed suffering a horrific hang-over from our over-indulgence.  It is no help, then, that the world's largest polluters, China and the US, taking snarky positions regarding emission cuts and funding mechanism plans; India makes it clear that it will not convert its domestic carbon reduction pledges into a globally binding pact. Uncle Sam demands "a real commitment from China" who, in turn, slams the US for inadquate mitigation targets. Says Yu Qingtai, China's chief climate negotiator:  "What they should do is some deep soul-searching."  Acting like adults, Republicans back home demand - demand! - that any funds directed from industrialised, polluting nations to developing, polluting nations exclude China, since China now the competition.  China sniffs - don't want your largesse any way.  Copenhagen trying to sneak away with a political deal and nothing binding; Western pledges - around $10B- pointless against the scale of pollution while the playground posturing borish.  Older generations who built our global systems would be aghast - where is our FDR or Marshall? Wilson and Churchill? MLK or Ankara or Ghandi?  Obama may prove himself a cable statesman, even (one day) deserving the Nobel Peace Prize, but for now I am not encouraged - following  eight years of dire, utter neglect there is way much to be done and the necessary shock-treatment not coming. What will our future generations think of us, other than disdain and gloom?  We still have four days in Denmark to rise above ourselves.