The truth of secret diplomats' business

''The most important item on the agenda at any international conference,'' he resumed, ''is to fix the date of the next meeting - and of course the location.''

However - and it was a big however - if a conference succeeded in wiping out poverty or pestilence, there would be no prospect of trying to go to another conference the following year on the same subject. Concentrating on the date of the next conference would guarantee poverty and pestilence would still be there the next year and would provide the excuse for another year's travel, entertainment, spending other people's money, passing pious resolutions and generally being self-important, all of which are the only reasons for being in politics or diplomacy.
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So also is the secret protocol intact: conferences on climate change will never be held anywhere near Darfur or Bangladesh.

Flicking the switch on Rudd's poll plans | The Daily Telegraph

Post-Copenhagen, the odds have widened on the next election being much to do with climate change, if Rudd has anything to do with it. Copenhagen was a debacle and Rudd's ETS is looking DOA. Labor will probably focus on Abbott's shifting climate views, which are really more to do with support for the positions of previous Coalition leaders than Abbott's personal opinion.

Scientific evidence does not support the theory of Global Warming

What we take away from this research is that the scientific evidence is not sufficient for us to make significant public policy decisions based thereupon. The earth's temperature goes in cycles but we don't know precisely the length of the immediate cycle much less those before scientific measurements were possible. (i.e., millions of years ago). There is no certainty about what actually causes the cycles or what causes the duration of the ups and downs. The speculation about man-made carbon dioxide changes is just that...speculation. Thus, it does not makes sense to us that we could disrupt the current economic system without more substantial scientific evidence. But of course, "more research is needed."

Climate change and Copenhagen: (4 letters) | eLetters

I found Mike Littwin’s ad hominem attack on Sarah Palin and the American people who doubt global warming to be a straw man attempt to explain away the global warming hoax known as Climate-gate. The real issue is that we were lied to by the scientists at the University of East Anglia, not because they were “under siege by the deniers,” but because they did not have the data to support their claims.

Eric Hoffer wrote, in his book “The True Believer,” that, “Propaganda by itself, however skillful, cannot keep people persuaded once they have ceased to believe. To maintain itself, a mass movement has to order things so that when the people no longer believe, they can be made to believe by force.”

John P. Guinther, Louisville