It's official as of Monday morning in Australia.
The United States now stands isolated, alone, and disgraced among the world community.
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's new Labor government signed documents to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on Monday within hours of being sworn into power, ending Australia's long-held opposition to the global climate pact.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who will attend the United Nations climate talks in Bali next week, said the move was the first official act of his new government, which won power after 11 years of conservative rule on November 24.
Ahh, the utter hubris of our losers in the White House in the face of their largest challenge is hard to comprehend.
"In the case of..an average increase in global temperature of 2.6 degrees C by 2040, massive non-linear events in the global environment give rise to massive nonlinear societal events."
Here are some of the consequences CSIS foresees under this scenario:
- nations of the wourld overwhelmed by the scale of change and pernicious challenges, such as pandemic disease
- flooding of coastal communities has the potential to challenge regional and even national identities
-Armed conflict between nations over resources is likely and nuclear war is possible
-social consequences range from increased religious fervor to outright chaos
And, of course, according to the U.N., this is an
"A Moral Failure Unparalleled in History"
Climate change is the defining human development issue of our generation. All development is ultimately about expanding human potential and enlarging human freedom. It is about people developing the capabilities thatempower them to make choices and to lead lives that they value. Climate change threatens to erode human freedoms and limit choice. It calls into question the Enlightenment principle that human progress will make the future look better than the past. . .
Our starting point is that the battle against climate change can—and must—be won. The world lacks neither the financial resources nor the technological capabilities to act. If we fail to prevent climate change it will be because we were unable to foster the political will to cooperate.
Such an outcome would represent not just a failure of political imagination and leadership, but a moral failure on a scale unparalleled in history. During the 20th Century failures of political leadership led to two world wars. Millions of people paid a high price for what were avoidable catastrophes. Dangerous climate change is the avoidable catastrophe of the 21st Century and beyond. Future generations will pass a harsh judgement on a generation that looked at the evidence on climate change, understood the consequences and then continued on a path that consigned millions of the world’s most vulnerable people to poverty and exposed future generations to the risk of ecological disaster.
And then there was one. And, for us Americans, our once proud country is now a pariah.
And then there was one.