When China Killed Terra

Dopenhagen will not be the defining moment in the struggle for a climate suitable for life as we have known it. Though in the future we may recognize this as the moment when China killed the planet.

It may mark the moment when the decline of US hegemony became obvious to all. China will do whatever China wants. China is a racist nation, that looks down on all other peoples and cares not about the opinions of others. The US and Europe missed their opportunity to keep the Chinese down when they had the chance. Now it is too late. The US is a debt junkie and its economy in tatters after dismantling its manufacturing sector in favor of a short-sighted financial sector. Its only remaining power is military might, and they can’t employ that against China. The only way to keep China in check at this point is to refuse to buy their wares, and that will be hard with an ignorant populace addicted to shopping. Particularly now that China makes iPhones.

Hopefully Nopenhagen also marks the moment when it became obvious to even Joe Blow that the UN cannot continue to do business in the way that it has been. This is no way to make decisions in important matters. Particularly not in crisis situations dealing with systems with built-in break points. You could have put 20 smart and knowledgeable people to write a treaty text, and put that to a majority vote: each nation one vote, yes or no, majority rules. There are other way to get things done, but the UN consensus model is not one of them. The consensus model is broken. After Obama’s speech it was clear, once again, that the UN has no clear role and no power.

The US has only itself to thank, after 5 decades of undermining the UN and rendering it impotent.

Chinese culture tends to take a longer view of things than the myopic Western perspective. We can only hope that China recognizes in time that it is in their interest to save the climate.

This is also a defining moment for traditional NGOs. The strategies and tactics they have employed have not worked. They have been losing all the way. Their modus operandi has failed to make Western countries sustainable, failed to save the rainforest, failed to save species, and failed to save the climate. It will certainly not work against China.