Aspirational goal?
International leaders at this week's APEC summit in Australia agreed on a "long-term aspirational goal" to reduce carbon emissions. Without any binding targets. You know what this is equivalent to? When I woke up this morning, I was drinking my coffee on the back porch and looked at a tree that's branches are creeping out of my yard and into my neighbors' yard. I fleetingly thought, "I should do something about that." I had an aspirational, long-term goal of trimming that tree. Or that time I said, "I'm going to make the pro golf tour sometime."
More at reuters. It's not new news (is that redundant?) that international leaders discuss, however vaguely, climate change. It's been a cost of entry for summit talks since Kyoto grabbed headlines. It's normally an aspect of media coverage when two or more gather. The difference - and therefore the "news" in my mind - is that though unfortunate, the power to affect climate change doesn't rest solely on our leaders' shoulders. In fact, the first thing I thought when reading the reuters story was, "At least everyday people are doing extraordinary things."
And that's exciting. And, per the article, necessary.
On the same topic, America's point man had one of his world series of speech blunders at the summit. Check out this video...it's as if he crammed a week's worth of Bushims into two minutes. I guess if we can't expect our president to know where he is, it's audacious of us to expect he implements binding targets to international recommendations.
More at reuters. It's not new news (is that redundant?) that international leaders discuss, however vaguely, climate change. It's been a cost of entry for summit talks since Kyoto grabbed headlines. It's normally an aspect of media coverage when two or more gather. The difference - and therefore the "news" in my mind - is that though unfortunate, the power to affect climate change doesn't rest solely on our leaders' shoulders. In fact, the first thing I thought when reading the reuters story was, "At least everyday people are doing extraordinary things."
And that's exciting. And, per the article, necessary.
On the same topic, America's point man had one of his world series of speech blunders at the summit. Check out this video...it's as if he crammed a week's worth of Bushims into two minutes. I guess if we can't expect our president to know where he is, it's audacious of us to expect he implements binding targets to international recommendations.
