Copenhagen Climate Talks
The long-awaited talks start today, with progressives mostly pessimistic about the outcome. Bill McKibben makes a case for pessimism at TomDispatch—sobering and well worth reading. Paul Krugman claims to be optimistic in his New York Times op-ed today, but based on a remarkably apolitical analysis of the situation (cutting carbon is affordable and makes sense, so it will happen??!!).
As Copenhagen begins, it’s also worth looking back at this post on Slate from last February by a fellow at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard (and Bloomberg News columnist) who looked at media coverage of climate change. He lays out the high degree of consensus among economists of most stripes on the economics of climate change: that the benefits of prompt strong action far outweigh the costs. Then he looks at how wrong most media coverage of the economics has been. Not the only factor that explains why public pressure is lacking in the United States on this issue, but no doubt one of them.
No Responses to “Copenhagen Climate Talks”
Derek Wall says:
December 7, 2009 at 11:40 pm
No nonsense guide to Copenhagen here
http://another-green-world.blogspot.com/2009/12/copenhagen-no-nonsense-guide.html