Obama has no influence in Copenhagen
Obama shed some of his famous cool in Copenhagen, blasting China and other big polluters for their failure to act, according to Politico:
“I have to be honest, as the world watches us… I think our ability to take collective action is doubt and it hangs in the balance,” Obama told the CO-15 plenary session as hope for anything more than a vague political agreement faded.
“The time for talk is over, this is the bottom line: We can embrace this accord, take a substantial step forward. We can do that and everyone who is in this room will be part of an historic endeavor or we can choose delay,” he said, predicting: “We will back here making the same stale arguments, year after year, perhaps decade after decade, all until the danger of climate change grows until it is irreversible.”
He added: “The question is whether we will move forward together, or split apart… We know the fault lines because we’ve been imprisoned by them for years.”
But Obama wasn’t in a position to excoriate China or any other nation. China is the world’s biggest polluter, but the U.S. is the second, and we’ve done very little to address climate change.
And prospects for significant legislation next year are in doubt, with Republicans in full revolt and Democrats scared of their own shadow. Sorry, President Obama, but you look weak on this issue.
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105 comments Add your comment
Vinny
December 18th, 2009
7:41 am
Cynthia – America has done little to address climate change because there is nothing that we can do to prevent the sun from burning hotter. To think that man has control over the climate is the height of arrogance.
Peadawg
December 18th, 2009
7:48 am
“China is the world’s biggest polluter, but the U.S. is the second”
Great job Obama…hypocrite!
Joel Edge
December 18th, 2009
7:56 am
Leaving aside global warming and whether or not we’re actually responsible for it. We’re not going to have any pull with most of theses countries anyway. Unless we come bearing cash. For the poor countries this is a big cash transfer scheme. China has it’s agenda and they’re not gonna alter it. I suspect the Chi-comms are considerably less worried than we are about polar bears.
Turd Feguson
December 18th, 2009
7:59 am
Who cares…The Global Climate Farce is just that. Muchado about nothing.
On another note, Obobo looks weak because he is weak and he will remain weak.
Dave
December 18th, 2009
8:08 am
Didn’t Hillary Clinton make an announcement that we will be contributing to this $100 billion per year donation to developing countries (to fight global warming)? The NYT has reported that a US official stated that our portion would be 20%, or $20 billion per year. Have the American taxpayers agreed to this, since we will be the ones footing the bill?
Dave
December 18th, 2009
8:18 am
We are borrowing money from China right now just to pay the interest on our debt, yet this administration is willing to give away up to $20 billion a year? You see why the latest poll numbers show that the Democrats are in a free fall?
Smashsmeesha Bobeesha
December 18th, 2009
8:22 am
Cynthia, does it anger you to know that the first black president will go down as the worst president in history?
Smashsmeesha Bobeesha
December 18th, 2009
8:23 am
Obama has no influence in Copenhagen
Cynthia has no influence in journalism
Dave
December 18th, 2009
8:25 am
Cynthia, as an African American women, how does it make you feel to know that the unemployment rate among African Americans (15.6% as of November 2009 – Source = Bureau of Labor Statistics)is disproportionately higher than the overall rate of 10%, while at the same time you have an administration that is supported by 98% of the black population promising to give away $20 billion/year to other “poor” countries?
kayaker 71
December 18th, 2009
8:31 am
Bozo looks weak on most issues….. has it taken you this long, Cynthia, to get a grip? He is a lightweight which the world ignores and does not take seriously most anytime.
Joe
December 18th, 2009
8:57 am
I “hope” that the President realizes the idiocy of those around him and cares more (now) about his legacy than pleasing the radicals. If he doesn’t, he is destined to be Bush Cheney II. Emissions are obviously not healthy and should be smartly reduced over time. Why in the world do we want to pay ransom payments to countries like Venezuela. The time for Americans (yes Americans, not just white,black, or yellow Americans, to stop making decisions based on fear needs to be over.
th
December 18th, 2009
8:59 am
Obama looks weak on EVERY issue — in Copenhagen & in the USA. This president has no influence here or abroad. America is a failed state. Period.
Recovering Demoholic
December 18th, 2009
9:13 am
Yawn. Scratch self. What everyone else said. How do we get the $100 billion back? Gonna bake some ACORN cookies.
Nathan
December 18th, 2009
9:14 am
Looks like the bag of pixie dust is now empty. This president needs someone to throw him a life preserver.
Smashsmeesha Bobeesha
December 18th, 2009
9:14 am
Cynthia, I am amazed that you’ve said nothing about the communists who’ve surrounded Copenhagen.
Hiding your true colors are we?
samuel
December 18th, 2009
9:15 am
China may or may not be the world’s biggest polluter, but remember also that China has more than 4 times as many people ( almost 1.4 billion to 308 million) than the U.S. But, with their rapid pace of industialization, China is bound to zoom ahead of the U.S. in polluting the planet. China is already the world’s second largest car market, and there is much room for growth there. G.M., Ford, and every other automaker is looking for a piece of the action in China. China also produces many of the goods that used to be made in the U.S. If you are in Hong Kong, take the Kowloon-Canton Railway to Lo Wu, and, if you have a Chinese visa, go to Shenzhen. You will see stores with knockoffs of designer brands. Chinese people and tourists alike eat these things up. The factories in Southern China make the clothes that Americans used to make for a fraction of the cost. These clothes and other products are the reason Wal-Mart is the biggest and most profitable retailer in the world. And China practices capitalism without democracy, which means that the government there dosen’t have to answer to the people. And to the increasingly materialistic people of China, they couldn’t care less about climate change. Essentially, they’re like Americans in the decades after World War II. 2 cars in every garage. Multiply that by 4 times the population and you get the idea.
Bo Doodly
December 18th, 2009
9:16 am
Bake some ACORN cookie….LOL !!!
Scout
December 18th, 2009
9:25 am
The great majority of Americans will soon regret the day this man ever became President. What you are seeing (or realizing) now Ms. Tucker is just the tip of the iceberg.
DAVID-.....AJC's Truth Detector
December 18th, 2009
9:29 am
CT…………If you believed in GOD…….you would know GOD would not have given his finest creation .(HUMANs)..the ability to destroy another of HIS creations…..LIBERALs are so…so CLUELESS.
DAVID-.....AJC's Truth Detector
December 18th, 2009
9:30 am
CYNTHIA……………U R so…so…so CLUELESS.
Enough Of Cynthia
December 18th, 2009
9:32 am
Cynthia,I can’t believe that you are so worried about global warming when Obama just pledged $100 billion a year to this made up science. What about all the unemployed in this country who lost their job through no fault of their own. They can sure this money more then the rest of the world. Also, I can’t believe that the U.S. is second when you look at India, Brazil and Mexico. These nation pollute far more then we do.
www.nflteamstoday.com
December 18th, 2009
9:40 am
Copenhagen was hit by a blizzard last night… funny how they say that things are getting hotter, we may even see a white christmas here in georgia for the first time in my 30 years of living here !!
Call it like it is.
December 18th, 2009
9:40 am
Wow, Cindy said something bad about OBAMA?? Are you kidding me, where are the cameras? Am I being punked? Well at least Obama is giving the world a good example of cutting down co2 emmisions, I mean he has only taken Airforce 1 to Europe what 5 or 6 times “this year alone!”
You know what he should do. Send China about 10 to 12 billion dollars to help them fix the problem. Of course China will have to finance the money we are going to send them, but it will all work out in about 70 to 80 years after we pay off the interest.
Sunshine and Thunder
December 18th, 2009
9:44 am
I didn’t vote for Obama nor would I ever vote for him. But I think right now he needs our support. He’s about to oversee a major was offensive in Afghanistan and send thousands of our young men and women in harm’s way. He needs our support right now not a bunch of poorly thought out slings and arrows.
Grumpy
December 18th, 2009
9:44 am
The Copenhagen summit is all about blackmail anyway. Smaller “developing” (translation – 3rd world pits with corrupt leadership) nations don’t give a flip about climate change. They care about $$$. If the price is right, they’ll go along with anything. Send their corrupt governments enough cash and they’ll agree to anything.
I don’t blame China and India for walking out. The US and European Union were the largest polluters for 50 years. Now, as China and India are catching up, the US and Europe want them to choke off their growth to “save the planet” and it sounds hypocritical.
Obama sounds weak because the U.S. has no right to demand anything from anyone else.
SouthGaDawg
December 18th, 2009
9:49 am
Well I’m glad to see that Obama isn’t dictating to the world like Bush. Oh wait…that’s exactly what he’s doing. Didn’t Cynthia just praise him recently for not “bullying” like the last administration?
Hmmm…something smells hypocritical? Could it be Cynthia?
LibraryJim
December 18th, 2009
9:50 am
To Joe: Not “Bush/Cheney II”, but “Carter/Mondale II”.
Cynthia, a little fact checking would show that the United States leads the world in emissions CONTROL technology, and today we have cleaner air and water than we did 50 years ago; better and more efficient food producing techniques; and thanks to reforestation, more forest land than when Columbus set foot in the New World. We also export a lot of this technology, much of it for free, through the Peace Corps; church Missionary projects such as ‘Feed the Children’ and “Solar Light for Africa”; Doctors without Borders; Agricultural education projects; etc.
The USA has NOTHING to be ashamed of in this debate, and should NOT bear the brunt of the blame for something over which Man has no control anyway.
If you want to talk about pollution and environmental issues, then let’s have these summits and treaties focus on the real culprits, putting blame where blame is due: China; India; many African Nations (let’s include genocide, as well); etc.
citizen
December 18th, 2009
9:58 am
Joy to the World, the Lord has come. Let earth receive “her” King. Don’t mess with Mother Nature.
Jimmy62
December 18th, 2009
10:07 am
WHat you and China and Obama for that matter neglect to mention is that despite not signing the inane Kyoto accords and without passing cap and trade and such, we’re the only major economy whose emissions have gone down int he last decade. Why? Innovation, advancement of technology, that sort of thing. It’s a long, but accelerating process driven by the private flow of capital through the interactions of the free market. Could be faster, but the government keeps getting the in way with taxes, regulations, picking winners and losers, that sort of thing. But if the government stays mostly out of the way, private enterprise and technology within 30 years will have us saying, “Why were we so worried about this stuff? It’s an easy fix! You gotta wonder what those idiots were thinking, trying to rearrange society for such a small issue. I wonder why they put so much energy into that when there were so many more urgent problems to deal with, like Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists, the dissolution of the stability offered by the nuclear family, hunger in Africa, and acid-washed jeans?”
Jimmy Carter
December 18th, 2009
10:10 am
Blizzard Dumps Snow on Copenhagen as Leaders Battle Warming…
More on the way; Temps set to drop even further…
‘What a bunch of buffoons’…
CHINESE PREMIER SNUBS OBAMA — CANCELS ONE-ON-ONE MEETING…
GUARDIAN: Obama speech fuels frustration; Lacklustre address fails to lift gloom…
I guess they just don’t get his “hope and change” schtick.
Kevin
December 18th, 2009
10:19 am
How dare these other countries now bow down at the alter that is Obama!
The six billion people on earth are all racists.
Scott
December 18th, 2009
10:22 am
Vinny nailed it. To think that mankind has so much power that we can control the climate more than the sun or natural phenomena such as volcanoes is ludicrous. The data behind it is all meaningless, especially when “scientists” behind the whole concept actually throw away data that does not prove their hypotheses. It is easy to “prove” your theories when you simply remove data and then build a model to show what you want to prove. If these “scientists” were so willing to compromise their own values regarding research, what other data did they fudge? How did they let their biases impact other decision while performing this research? Everybody needs to understand that the earth warms and cools. It has done this since the beginning of time. The push for climate change legislation is nothing more than another attempt at redistribution of wealth. We can say that the US is the leader of gas pollution as we want, but it is criminal not to include the benefits we have providing the world as a result of the gas emissions. If we want to start keeping a tally, then let’s stop giving money to every other cause that we lead the charge on and simply put it towards our gas emissions. Let’s see how the world would like that. Goodbye UN, goodbye, World Bank, Goodbye Peace Corps, Goodbye support for natural disasters, etc.
Steve
December 18th, 2009
10:25 am
Unfortunately, i think Obama will be a one term president. If that happens his presidency will go down as a complete and total failure.
Alex Rodriguez
December 18th, 2009
10:38 am
Steve – It’s not unfortunate. It’s a damn good thing that commie pig will be a one termer.
Jess
December 18th, 2009
10:39 am
I just watched a nobel prize winning scientist from MIT who was on Al Gores panal of experts on Gore’s initial study which lead to his Nobel prize. The scientist said he is a global warming denier. He clarified that at the time he was on the panel, he was a doubter, but has since become a denier, after further research.
He said the problem with this whole debate is that the issue has been stolen from the scientific community by politicians. They have chosen to focus on only the worst case scenarios of the global warming theory, and totally ignored the most likely scenario which is that the climate will remain about the same with barely detectable changes. He feels that money, which is readily available to scientist as long as they get the right reasult, has also tainted the research.
Scientist everywhere are jumping ship. This is the reason Copenhagan is floundering. This is now, and has always been a movement to redistribute wealth. Politicians have hijacked the science.
By the way, this was on CNN, not FOX.
mikey
December 18th, 2009
10:45 am
So the President and his entourage flew a giant jet over there to accomplish nothing? He should not have gone in the first place. Talk about “all show and no go”. This administration is really looking weak indeed.
DAVID-.....AJC's Truth Detector
December 18th, 2009
10:54 am
Cynthia…………Beauty fades………..but STUPID STAYS..moving to D.C. DIDN’T MAKE YOU ANY SMARTER.
eddy
December 18th, 2009
10:56 am
Lots of people in Copenhagen have been “dragged through the stupid forest and their heads hit every tree.” Cynthia, go plant a tree. It’ll absorb the C02 you emit each day. On the other hand, just hold your breath.
DAVID-.....AJC's Truth Detector
December 18th, 2009
10:59 am
Maybe OBAMA…. does have enough common sense to realize man-made GLOBAL WARMING is all a HOAX..after all.
Global scare mongering
December 18th, 2009
11:01 am
Its a scientific fact that the earth has warmed and cooled countless times over its approximate 4 billion year lifespan. Just in the past 120,000 years that Homo Sapiens have believed to inhabit earth there have been 20 significant warming cycles of 10 degrees or more.
Most recently in the middle ages we had the medieval warming period where temperatures were 10-12 degrees higher. There is a reason why the vikings called present day Iceland Greenland when they landed there. Because it was warm and instead of ice there was a sheet of grass, of greenery. Guess what? We weren’t burning fossil fuels in the middle ages.
It amazes me when they find dinosaur skeletons in places like North Dakota where it gets to 50 below zero with the wind chill factor. How did cold blooded reptiles and plant life like tropical ferns live in cold arse North Dakota? Easy. At one time its believed the planet was extremely warm and most of North America was a hot, temperate rain forest where cold blooded dinosaurs such as T-rex could live. So we know it was hotter than hell then but to my knowledge the dinosaurs weren’t burning fossil fuels.
We know that the earth has warmed 8/10ths of 1 degree over the last 100 years. Is it man made? Possibly. But probably not. And a 1 or 2 degree warming isn’t bad anyway. It means longer growing seasons, more food in a planet where millions of people in 3rd world countries struggle to eat, and less fossil fuels being burned to heat homes during harsh winters.
All this scaremongering is nothing more than a veiled attack on capitalism and the US in particular. Its about wealth envy and a deep seated resentment and jealousy over the success of the American free enterprise model.
And if you think socialism is better on the environment then you’ve never been to eastern Europe or China under communist rule. My relatives traveled throughout Eastern Europe a few years after the fall of communism. Those countries were drab, dirty, ecologically filthy. Chernobyl, lead and mercury filled water, just filthy. Have a friend that goes to China on business. The air is filthy beyond imagination.
There is an economic principle that states that the wealthier a society is the more demand there is for a cleaner environment. The poorer the society the less important a clean environment is. The reason is obvious. Poor people and poor countries are more immediately concerned with basics such as food, shelter, etc. Costly emission control technology and the luxury of cleaner industrial production take a back seat.
So the bottom line is that these people such as Hugo Chavez blaming capitalism for pollution have it completely backwards. But its easier and more fashionable to preach to the ignorant blame America first crowd through sloganeering. Binging out the worst in people through wealth envy is what these people and sadly enough what liberal journalists like Cynthia do.
www.nflteamstoday.com
December 18th, 2009
11:02 am
The only way Republicans can defeat Obama in 2012, is if Colin Powell decides to run!
ButtHead
December 18th, 2009
11:05 am
Hey Obozo, I have an idea, worry about America, who cares what they do? You are our American president, not the world leader……I know that is what he wants, to be the world dictator.
samuel
December 18th, 2009
11:06 am
China may pollute more than the U.S., but their consumption of the world’s resources is more in line with their % of the world’s population ( 1 billion, 350 million people in China out of 6.8 billion people in the world comes to just under 20% of the world’s population). We in the U.S. however, consume the world’s resources at about 6 times our % of the world’s population. ( In the U.S., 308 million people out of 6.8 billion people is just over 4.5% of the world’s population). China, neither it’s government nor many of it’s citizens, wants to be left out of the boom that’s happening there, which is why the Chinese government is stalling on a climate change agreement. It has nothing to do with Obama. It wouldn’t matter who the U.S. president is. As usual, the same group of bitter conservatives use this as an excuse to trash Obama personally.
Big D
December 18th, 2009
11:08 am
The big picture is 90% of the people at this joke in Copenhagen could not give a rat’s butt about saving the planet…they are there with their hand out like AL Goofer. WE have the means right now to fix the problem at home and they are not listening…I know I’ve been there. We better take China as a role model and start manufacturing again for our own consumption…that means GET THE DEMS OUT IN 2010….WAKE UP PEOPLE.
Big D
December 18th, 2009
11:13 am
Enter your comments here
mit
December 18th, 2009
11:17 am
Vinny nailed it? Really? climate change is because the sun is getting hotter.
google people, hell bing even. just do something besides typing dumb comments.
the sun is not getting hotter. the light that comes through your windows is photons from the sun. Meaning what? Its lossing photons and therefore lossing heat. One day the sun will go out, not the opposite.
extremerightwing
December 18th, 2009
11:20 am
He looks weak on this issue? Only this issue? It’s Jimmy Carter II.
mit
December 18th, 2009
11:22 am
Big D, i am guessing that stands for big dummy.
All I get from your post is just pollute more and blame everything on scientists and democrats.
You think China manufacturers products for their own consumption? The chinese people can’t afford the products they manufacture retard. Its for our consumption.
www.nflteamstoday.com
December 18th, 2009
11:24 am
actually Mit, before our sun goes out as you say, it will increase in size 100 fold, pretty much eating every planet within the asteroid belt! So yes, the sun will get much hotter as it gets closer to our own planet, google it if you do not believe me
vince neil
December 18th, 2009
11:24 am
I submit their is no man made global warming (or any at all for that matter…and if there is why isn’t it good for us to warm a little)…the president’s weakness regarding his relations with the brutal plutocracy in China over this and his retchedly misguided dealings with the Daili Lama continue to dinimsh us and make the sane and sober………………….and taxpaying members of our population count the days to be rid of this mistake!
Boehner for Speaker in 2010 at least!