56 Newspapers, 40 Countries, Same Editorial

Not necessarily an endorsement, but certainly worth reading to get a flavor of how much of the world views the Copenhagen Conference:

Copenhagen climate change conference: 'Fourteen days to seal history's judgment on this generation'

This editorial calling for action from world leaders on climate change is published today by 56 newspapers around the world in 20 languages

Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.

Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year's inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world's response has been feeble and half-hearted. (Continue to the full editorial...)

If It Warms Up, Who's Going to Pay?

This is a useful perspective on the challenges for the Copenhagen conference (from the Wall Street Journal ):

Poorer countries insist there will be no environmental agreement unless wealthy countries help them adapt to the possible effects of global warming. Samuel Fankhauser offers a blueprint for cooperation.  (Continue to the article...)

Cap and Trade or Cap and Fade?

Cap and trade is looking like a fait accompli for the US, and there are two Op-Eds in today's NYT that look at climate change legislation and its economic and environmental effects.  The first is by Paul Krugman, and he makes an argument similar to those made in The Economist, namely that addressing climate change may pay in the short and long run:

"...The truth, however, is that cutting greenhouse gas emissions is affordable as well as essential. Serious studies say that we can achieve sharp reductions in emissions with only a small impact on the economy’s growth. And the depressed economy is no reason to wait — on the contrary, an agreement in Copenhagen would probably help the economy recover."  Continue to the article...

Jim Hansen, climate scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center has a different take on the environmental effects of cap and trade legislation--basically that it is a scam that will leave us short of what we need to do on climate legislation and long on lining the pockets of big business.  

"At the international climate talks in Copenhagen, President Obama is expected to announce that the United States wants to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to about 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. But at the heart of his plan is cap and trade, a market-based approach that has been widely praised but does little to slow global warming or reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. It merely allows polluters and Wall Street traders to fleece the public out of billions of dollars." Continue to the article...

The Economist Special Report: Stopping Climate Change

The Leader in the current issue of The Economist is on the Climate Conference in Copenhagen that starts this week:

Uncertainty about the consequences of climate change makes it hard to persuade people to spend money on it, for where the damage is uncertain, so are the benefits of averting it. Yet uncertainty is also why mankind needs to take the problem seriously.  (Continue to the article...)

They continue with a A special report on climate change and the carbon economy that has 11 articles giving overviews of the central issues in the debate.  The articles on economist's views on climate change and the efficacies of climate change policy look particularly interesting--the issue would certainly make a great jumping-off point for group discussions.

Will Big Business Save the Earth?

People who still view the environment through the lens of the 1960s-1980s think in terms of business or environment.  In today's New York Times, Jared Diamond has an interesting Op-Ed arguing otherwise:

THERE is a widespread view, particularly among environmentalists and liberals, that big businesses are environmentally destructive, greedy, evil and driven by short-term profits. I know — because I used to share that view.

Continue to the article....