Copenhagen, the Apocalypse and America

Was Copenhagen really the world’s last chance? Now that the climate summit appears to be ending with no concrete results, they’re already saying the apocalypse is upon us. And America is being blamed (again) for the coming end of the world (again). Barack Obama, who a majority of Europeans believed could walk on water, had already slipped into the doubtful category due to his Afghanistan war policies. Because he won’t be able to successfully solve the differences between rich and poor, between industrial nations and burgeoning new superpower nations, he is now the critics’ main target.

Even those who don’t think politicians have the power to take any substantive measures in combating global warming, they still see the necessity for the United States to do more. In energy conservation, it’s not just about CO2 figures but, first and foremost, it’s about limited global resources. That’s why America’s houses need to be better insulated and its automobiles and factories more energy efficient. Americans think so, too. 55 percent of Americans surveyed by the Gallup organization thought the Copenhagen summit should result in a climate protection agreement. But 85 percent said that economic recovery was more important than global warming. For Obama, who supports a serious ecological program, job creation and healthcare reform are his main priorities. It would be wrong to advise him to go head-to-head with the Senate or to bypass Congress with ecological executive orders.

Europeans need to rein in their schoolmaster tendencies. It was the United States under Jimmy Carter that broke ground in the areas of photovoltaic and wind turbine technology, and now the Germans and Japanese are profiting in those industries. They’re profiting as business people, not as ecological saints.

We can be confident that even if Copenhagen is the world’s last chance, the next summit and the next last chance will soon follow.