During a visit to Henderson Nevada, President Obama explained basic climate science for the people who had gathered to listen to him at the town hall.

“First of all, we just got five feet of snow in Washington and so everybody is like — a lot of the people who are opponents of climate change, they say, see, look at that, there’s all this snow on the ground, this doesn’t mean anything. I want to just be clear that the science of climate change doesn’t mean that every place is getting warmer; it means the planet as a whole is getting warmer. But what it may mean is, for example, Vancouver, which is supposed to be getting snow during the Olympics, suddenly is at 55 degrees, and Dallas suddenly is getting seven inches of snow.

The idea is, is that as the planet as a whole gets warmer, you start seeing changing weather patterns, and that creates more violent storm systems, more unpredictable weather. So any single place might end up being warmer; another place might end up being a little bit cooler; there might end up being more precipitation in the air, more monsoons, more hurricanes, more tornadoes, more drought in some places, floods in other places.”

You should also take a moment to read George Monbiot’s article on why Britain’s cold snap does not prove climate science wrong.

Karl Marx came up with the term “metabolic rift” to explain the crack or rift that capitalism has created between social and natural systems, humans and nature. This rift, he claimed, led to the exploitation of the environment and ecological crisis. Marx argued that we humans are all part of nature and he was also the first one who saw social societies as an organism with a metabolism similar to that of humans. In the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts from 1844, Marx wrote that:

“Man lives from nature, i.e., nature is his body, and he must maintain a continuing dialogue with it if he is not to die. To say that man’s physical and mental life is linked to nature simply means that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature.”

The general idea is that disruptions, or interruptions, in natural cycles and processes creates an metabolic rift between nature and social systems which leads to a buildup of waste and in the end to the degradation of our environment.

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Photo credit: america.gov

The 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen, which many have said was our last chance to take action against “the greatest threat the world has ever faced”, ended in a failure.

For over 15 years delegates and politicians from around the world have discussed, debated and negotiated the questions of dealing with manmade climate change in various COP (Conference of the Parties) summits. So why haven’t they made any real progress yet?

That is a big question that covers a whole range of topics and issues that I won’t go into. Instead I will try to focus on the actual politics and tactics used at the COP summits. I will try to see if uneven development and inequality plays any part in how the actual negotiations plays out, how the delegates attending perceive climate justice and fairness, and if all this combined somehow sabotages the efforts to secure a climate deal.

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Photo credit: adopt a negotiator

Here are some of the biggest and most interesting news today related to the ongoing COP15 climate conference in Copenhagen:

A draft text for a potential final agreement in Copenhagen was leaked today to the Guardian. The “Danish text” has made the developing countries “furious” as the draft agreement would give even more powers to the rich nations, weakening UN’s future role as well as abandon the Kyoto protocol. Some say this shows the true agenda in Copenhagen, others believe the draft is unofficial and may have changed a lot since its first creation.

The Environmental Protection Agency in the USA has declared that carbon dioxide is a public danger. This would make it possible for Barack Obama to impose his proposed emissions cuts without an agreement in the sceptic U.S. Senate. A report released today by the Center for Biological Diversity claims that Obama now has the clear legal authority to make a binding commitment for greenhouse gas reductions in Copenhagen without waiting for Congress.

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Photo credit: Julien Harneis

Lord David Puttnam, ambassador for Unicef UK, asks on BBC’s Green Room what kind of price our children and future generations will have to pay for “the three or four carbon-happy generations that have lived before them?”

“Climate change is not just an environmental problem, it is a human rights issue. In fact it’s the biggest child rights problem of our time.

With the potential rise of up to 160,000 child deaths a year in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia directly resulting from climate change, it is children, the most vulnerable children, who will be caught at the centre of the storm.

They will unquestionably carry the greatest burden – both as children and as future adults – and yet they are the least culpable for its damage.”

Puttnam demands that the world “must stop borrowing from the future and act now” on man-made climate change, and that the rights of children should be put as “the core of the climate change policy framework”.

Photo credit: andriux-uk

Top climate scientists in the top scientific journal Nature recently stated that we have exceeded crucial planetary boundaries beyond which we are at high risk of unacceptable environmental change. These and other top climate scientists and biologists are stating clearly that the atmospheric CO2 concentration must be urgently returned to 300-350 ppm for planetary safety. Unfortunately, World governments are ignoring the science and are committed to increasing CO2, evidently not understanding that there can be no negotiation with the laws of Physics and Chemistry.

An Australian husband and wife with homeopathic beliefs were recently jailed for the manslaughter of their horribly neglected child. Accountability must also apply to all people who are ignoring scientific advice and international law and are complicit in the carnage of US wars (9-11 million excess deaths in US wars, 1990-2009, including 4 million infants) and in the worsening climate genocide (that will kill 10 billion people, including 6 billion infants). This inescapable legal, business, political and electoral Accountability for war crimes and climate crimes is detailed in a Letter being transmitted to all Federal MPs in climate criminal Australia (a world leader in annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution) and indeed to everyone so that, unlike many Germans in 1945, they cannot say “we didn’t know”.

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Photo credit: World Economic Forum

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is now warning that the upcoming climate talks this December in Copenhagen, Denmark, are in “grave danger” of failing. The UN climate change conference, also known as Cop15, in Copenhagen this year is the last chance we have to take action against “the greatest threat the world has ever faced”.

“”It is a historic moment: the ultimate test of global cooperation. Yet the negotiations are proceeding so slowly that a deal is in grave danger,” Brown wrote.

Brown has, after a rather successful global climate wake-up campaign around the world (see video below), pledged he will attend the Copenhagen talks. He says the UN climate change conference is such an important subject that it cannot be left to environment ministers.

“Securing an agreement in Copenhagen will require world leaders to bridge our remaining differences and seize these opportunities,” Brown wrote. “If we miss this opportunity, there will be no second chance sometime in the future, no later way to undo the catastrophic damage to the environment we will cause.”

Earlier this month Foreign Secretary in the UK, David Miliband, warned that the climate negotiations are in “real danger” of failing:

“There’s a real danger the talks scheduled for December will not reach a positive outcome, and an equal danger in the run-up to Copenhagen that people don’t wake up to the danger of failure until it’s too late.”

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Foreign Secretary in the UK, David Miliband, doesn’t seem to have much hope on the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference (Cop15) this December in Copenhagen, Denmark. Miliband even warns that the climate talks are in “real danger” of failing, the Independent reports:

“The deal the world needs in Copenhagen is now in the balance,” he said.

“There’s a real danger the talks scheduled for December will not reach a positive outcome, and an equal danger in the run-up to Copenhagen that people don’t wake up to the danger of failure until it’s too late.”

Miliband put the blame on “the complexity of the issue”, the economic recession as well as “suspicion” between the North and the South. In light of a diplomatic pr tour around Europe “to raise the issue of climate change” Miliband warned that if the world failed to come up with an agreement to cut emissions global temperatures will increase with 4C.

“This would lead to large scale migration as parts of the world disappeared under rising seas, threaten infrastructure as extreme weather events became more common, and put pressure on natural resources such as water – all of which could have serious impacts on peace and security across the world.”

What do you think about the upcoming Climate Change Conference this December – the last chance we have to take action against “the greatest threat the world has ever faced”? Will it be a success or a failure? What are your hopes and expectations? Please share your thoughts and ideas by voting in the poll below and/or making a comment.

The world must cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2020 to avert catastrophe, according to paleoclimate scientist Dr Dr Andrew Glikson (Australian National University) in an interview broadcast by Radio Australia (for the interview see “Carbon emissions must be cut by 80 percent [by 2020]: scientist“) .

This expert opinion telescopes the time frame for requisitely dealing with the worsening climate disruption, climate emergency and climate genocide from half a century to a decade.

Dr Andrew Glikson is an Earth and paleoclimate scientist, Visiting Fellow, School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Research School of Earth Science and Institute of Planetary Science, Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, ACT, Australia.

Dr Andrew Glikson interviewed by taxpayer-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Radio Australia, 2009, in response to the question ”what has to be done?” stated (in part):

“extremely rapid reduction in emissions … I would say, 80 percent within the next ten years or so … people like me have been looking at the evidence about this on a day to day basis and we have been doing it for years, and to look in to the abyss at this length is a daunting task.”

Dr Glikson’s plea is consonant with the dire views of Professor Kevin Anderson and Dr Alice Bows, climate scientists at the prestigious Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, UK.

Professor Kevin Anderson and Dr Alice Bows, in a key paper in the prestigious Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 2008, stated:

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George Monbiot, Europe’s leading green commentator, gives his rather negative opinion about the British and G8 climate strategy which he says “just doesn’t add up”. Monbiot argues that the British climate plan, which the G8 pretty much adopted as its own, is a “mockery” and that it is “very unlikely” to stop a two degrees increase in global temperatures.

“According to one person who has read the drafts, the new policies will include buying up to 50% of the reduction from abroad. If this is true, it means that the UK will not cut its greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050, as the government promised. It means it will cut them by 40%. Offsetting half our emissions (which means paying other countries to cut them on our behalf) makes a mockery of the government’s climate change programme.”

Monbiot writes that “if global justice means anything”, the rich West must of course make deeper cuts than the poorer developing countries. “We have the most to cut and can best afford to forgo opportunities for development”, Monbiot writes on the Guardian.

“Carbon offsetting makes sense if you are seeking a global cut of 5% between now and for ever. It is the cheapest and quickest way of achieving an insignificant reduction. But as soon as you seek substantial cuts, it becomes an unfair, impossible nonsense, the equivalent of pulling yourself off the ground by your whiskers. Yes, let us help poorer nations to reduce deforestation and clean up pollution. But let us not pretend that it lets us off the hook.”

It is, like always, worth a read: The rich can relax. We just need the poor world to cut emissions. By 125%