Storm warning

In the openDemocracy forums, Courtney Hamilton started a small firestorm when he expressed strong doubts about the Kyoto Protocol, first discussed in this blog here. Hamilton wrote:

Environmentalists have put the Kyoto Protocol on a morally high, political pedestal. But one by one, EU nations are slowly waking up to the economic realities of the Protocol - it's only a matter of time before they all give up this ecological-pantomime.

I want governments to spend more time, and money, encouraging rapid economic development, which would puts our society in a better position to adapt to climate change in the future. Why put the jobs of millions of people on the line?

In the most recent posts, Helen Albright said

I am astonished that anyone who understands the long term implications of climate change can indulge in such short term priorities as higher employment, improved living standards and putting off paying the debt we will inevitably have to pay as air, water, & soil degradation increase, resource depletion increases unabated, and the temperature rises to intolerable levels...

The only question, if our children are to have a future, is how to create self-sustaining communities.

Of course it is difficult, of course it will cost, and of course it will be painful. If we don't try to make this shift, nature will do it for us(in fact, already is), in ways that will be far more costly and cruel

“Englishman” commented:

The reality is that it is unlikely that the western world will cut back their people's lifestyles sufficiently to make any significant impact on global warming. But there are things that can be done and some difficult decisions that have to be made. This is not going to happen by a denial that any problem exists...

At the present time it is hard to see any realistic alternative but an increase, and a large increase, in nuclear power production. This is a bitter pill to swallow for many but there is no real chance of greener power production methods being developed to a sufficient extent in the timescales needed. This is a hard sell to people who associate this industry with major accidents and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but avoiding debate on difficult issues by denial of the problem is not the answer.

And Vee Artemis added

Whilst our 'leaders' shilly shally and debate, all over the world people are getting on with their own ways of tackling the climate change problem, using local, small-scale, sustainable initiatives. As with so many of today's problems, the way to tackle them is actually to think SMALL rather than big.

The forum discussion is here.