Green House

I've painted The White House pale green because of course it's not quite become The Green House yet as (sobber as usual) Richard Black of the BBC points out.

The devil is in the details, and of course a lot of them need to be sorted out before and after Copenhagen. But if we look back in time and want to be optimistic, it's greening. Personally, I find today's White House announcement encouraging. A greening White House against Green House Gases, I like the metaphore.

Let's keep an eye on the State Department Copenhagen website they've just launched.

Whatever happens in Copenhagen, it will be a watershed. Copenhagen means the awareness of the globalization of vulnerability.

Of course the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and other developing countries (like the Africans who made their voice heard at the recent Barcelona Climate Talks, as well as -- for example -- the Filipinos with half their bodies in the water) are the prime victims. But how can we avoid noting that in little more than half a century (since the French economist and demographer Alfred Sauvy coined the word Third World in 1952) we moved from a world whose aspiration was to integrate that third part of the world to the other two (to either of the two dominating Cold War regimes) to exactly the opposite?

We have entered a world where we are all sharing the consequences of the planetary life system's vulnerability, enhanced (caused) by the damage we're doing to the climate and to biodiversity.

We're all on the same boat. Or life raft?