The breakdown last November 25 of the Hague talks on ratifying the 1997 Kyoto protocols on global warming was bad news indeed. But it would have been worse had the U.S. gotten its way. Fortunately, Europe, chiefly France, Scandinavia, and Germany, stiffened its collective spine and refused to cave into American demands for the quick and easy fix. What Washington wants is anything that will avoid cutting back on the fossil fuel consumption that propels our industrial economy.
Nothing is too ridiculous for U.S. planners.
Hats off to the European green movements and to protesters on the scene who contributed to the de-mystification of this nonsense. But their victory is small consolation for the bleak prospects of contending with global warming. Yet in the face of this, the latest global warming conference showed as much strategic wisdom as a kindergarten class. The terrible implication to be drawn from this is that the present world-system is already humanly bankrupt and shows no evidence of being able to safeguard the future, hence it needs to be radically transformed if there is to be a future worth having. But between this brutally apparent fact and the effective response to date lies an abyss.