What's Possible - a film on climate solutions presented to the UN

What's Possible is a 3 minute film created to inspire delegates to the UN Climate Meeting in NY September 23, of this year.

After watching the film, if you wish to learn more about the interesting background behind it, read this Huffington Post article by the film's producer, Lyn Davis Lear.

Global warming advocates ignore the boulders

This link is to a George Will op-ed column in the Washington Post. It contains lots of details, many presented in a sarcastic way that made me smile. It also contains lots of links for those who wish to delve deeper into his details.

The link I found fascinating is the admission by Phil Jones, former director of Britain's Climatic Research Unit, that there has been NO statistically significant global warming from 1995 to the present.

And as if things aren't bad enough for global warming advocates, read the NY Times analysis of why Yvo de Boer resigned as UN Climate Chief.

REDD and the amended Lacey Act

This link is to an article on the World Resources Institute site (WRI).
"On May 22, 2008, the U.S. Congress passed a landmark amendment to the 100 year-old Lacey Act, originally enacted to prohibit the transportation of illegally captured animals or wildlife products across state lines. The new law extended this protection to plants - including timber, paper, and other forest products - thereby giving the U.S. government a powerful tool to eliminate illegally sourced wood and increase transparency in the global forest product supply chain."

The article highlights the first enforcement action under the amended Lacey Act, and also points out that the Act could have a significant impact in reducing illegal timber cutting in developing countries.  REDD is the widely adopted acronym for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation. UN-REDD was probably one of the Copenhagen convention's most agreed upon approaches to slow global warming.

At the WRI site you can also find a concise legal interpretation of the Copenhagen Accord.

Must Reads for Copenhagen

Whew! This is one heck of an assignment. Gordon, think you can finish all these by December?

Seriously, it is great to have a summary by a climate expert for each of these recommended books, and scanning through these summaries, I see several books I will be reading.

Also, Gordon and I will also be happy to make class time available to anyone who wants to read and present their summary of one of these books. Bill

Obama UN Speech on Global Warming

Sept. 22 2009, USA Today: "There should be no illusions that the hardest part of our journey is in front of us," Obama told the U.N. Climate Change Summit, a warm-up for a 190-nation conference to be held in Copenhagen in December.

A quote I found even more telling is also in this article:
Jose Barroso, president of the European Commission, put it succinctly: "Negotiations are dangerously close to deadlock at the moment."