The following video was apparently made on December 15th. Copenhagen is full of lots of “fed up” people with hugely unresolved issues on various topics in Copenhagen. Are they helping or getting in the way of climate negotiations?

No one has tried harder to keep the human toll of climate change at the forefront than DemocracyNow and people like Naomi Klein.  Unfortunately they are also the most cynical and pessimistic about the hundreds of conversations and negotiations that we are engaged in at Copenhagen and can’t see a single bright point anywhere.  At this point, it’s easy to vent frustration about it and throw in the towel completely but I can’t see how that helps anyone.  Even if all this convention does is to end deforestation in critical forests, it’s been worth something.  It will take months to decide just what it has all accomplished, but it’s obvious now that the Copenhagen summit was never designed to “save the world”.  I think it was overhyped.  Too-high expectations are no doubt contributing to its ultimate “failure”.  There will be future conferences and agreements on climate change.

The pessimistic cynicism reached a peak the other day when Klein said that  Obama should  “not bother” going to Copenhagen, mainly because the U.S. is harming the process, and wasting an opportunity.  I’m sure Hillary’s “extraordinarily manipulative” announcement about financing didn’t help her mood.  Here is Clinton’s announcement on possible $100 billion in financing, from Thursday morning.

Of course, everyone in government, and probably every single speech-giver at the conference is “manipulative”.  So is Klein herself.  So what?  It strikes me as juvenile and counter-productive to dwell on that at this point.   But then, Naomi Klein has disliked Clinton for a long time.  Now she is turning on Obama.  I’m still holding out some optimism that Obama will wake up and do the right thing just in the nick of time, but then, I have a belief in superheros that is quite unhealthy.  The point is, pessimism certainly doesn’t help.   It can even shorten your life.  Klein isn’t going to last long at this rate.

This morning on DemocracyNow, Klein, a DM favorite, was summed up like this:

“And here’s a second segment, in which Klein calls out Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s extraordinarily manipulative announcement from Copenhagen today that the US will contribute to a $100 billion dollar fund only if all UN member states reach a US-approved consensus–and declares it “blackmail.”

See both segments at The Nation here.

Not quite pessimistic enough, she was heard telling Obama to stay home.

“The US has lowered the bar and set goals so low, it’s been destructive. I think it would be better if the US had continued to stay out of it. I don’t see any point in US politicians coming here.”

She said.

OK, but that also accomplishes nothing.  So what do pessimists suggest?  Ultimately — survival.

But if that is your “solution” then why go to Copenhagen in the first place, obviously [...]