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climate treaty
October 2009 
Why Copenhagen will fail
Posted on Oct 22nd, 2009
by 
Daroy
Daroy
Though i do not believe that it's equivalent to the end of the world, i'm pretty certain by now that the Copenhagen talks on a follow-up treaty to the Kyoto protocol will be just that: talks. There won't be a binding, fair, and far-reaching agreement, even amidst large-scale, partly violent protests all over the world. Most political leaders won't even attend the summit in person. The reasons are simple, even though they are often overlooked:
- to begin with, the sheer number of people on this planet already makes the shift towards sustainabilty well-near impossible; meanwhile, wide-spread poverty produces too many new births, and insane medicine keeps pursuing the meaningless prolongation of human life expectancy;
- human beings are intrinsically selfish: they care about their own immediate well-being first;
- for all their media experience and ability to think ahead, most human beings still largely act according to immediate physical perception: they won't stop smoking till it hurts, they won't try the extinguisher till their house is on fire, they won't use public transport till petrol becomes unaffordable, and they won't invest in clean energy till storms and floods devastate their city;
- in terms of the theory of Spiral Dynamics, the large majority of human beings today live according to the blue (faith) or orange (business) meme-code; their consciousness is incapable of grasping the reality and urgency of global ecological challenges;
- for all its advantages over other forms of governance, representative democracy does not produce true leadership; as the term implies, the governments it produces represent and act on the will of the majority, so when the majority care about low taxes, limitless consumption, exquisite foods and cheap flights, that's what so-called 'leaders' will fight for.
In fact, the people getting together in Copenhagen will merely try to minimize restrictions for their own nations while at the same time putting on a clever 'Yes We Care' show for the media. There is no need even to bother the cliché (?) of bad multinational corporations trying to rule the world. The nature of the average individual explains it all. We just aren't ready to sustainably manage our planet yet. And the Earth will know how to get rid of us if we fail her for much longer.
image: Worldwide Fund for Nature
- to begin with, the sheer number of people on this planet already makes the shift towards sustainabilty well-near impossible; meanwhile, wide-spread poverty produces too many new births, and insane medicine keeps pursuing the meaningless prolongation of human life expectancy;
- human beings are intrinsically selfish: they care about their own immediate well-being first;
- for all their media experience and ability to think ahead, most human beings still largely act according to immediate physical perception: they won't stop smoking till it hurts, they won't try the extinguisher till their house is on fire, they won't use public transport till petrol becomes unaffordable, and they won't invest in clean energy till storms and floods devastate their city;
- in terms of the theory of Spiral Dynamics, the large majority of human beings today live according to the blue (faith) or orange (business) meme-code; their consciousness is incapable of grasping the reality and urgency of global ecological challenges;
- for all its advantages over other forms of governance, representative democracy does not produce true leadership; as the term implies, the governments it produces represent and act on the will of the majority, so when the majority care about low taxes, limitless consumption, exquisite foods and cheap flights, that's what so-called 'leaders' will fight for.
In fact, the people getting together in Copenhagen will merely try to minimize restrictions for their own nations while at the same time putting on a clever 'Yes We Care' show for the media. There is no need even to bother the cliché (?) of bad multinational corporations trying to rule the world. The nature of the average individual explains it all. We just aren't ready to sustainably manage our planet yet. And the Earth will know how to get rid of us if we fail her for much longer.
image: Worldwide Fund for Nature
Access: PublicTagged with: Copenhagen, sustainability, climate treaty, failure, governance, ecology, consciousness
I can't help but muse about how Earth will eventually take care of herself. We are not so powerful that we can take down a planet. She always rises to restore order when humans forget we are guests on her fertile bosom. If we remain so caught up in our selfish approaches to life, and let things go too far, I feel as though Earth will wipe out a large portion of humans so that she can heal for awhile. Drastic climate change, plagues, locusts, viruses, earthquakes, floods - enough of that kind of thing will help get our outrageous population explosion under control. Any thoughts on this?
I concur, and you put it beautifully, though in fact it's tragic. But who knows- luckily as individuals we're incapable of grasping the complexity of the interacting social, ecological, and spiritual forces at work in the world, so there may still come sudden unforeseen shifts and changes. I, for one, don't want to give up hope … :-)