And so what? Another UN climate change conference finished on a note that should surely hemorrhage any remaining sense of hope that substantive reductions in greenhouse gases will take place in the foreseeable future.

After hundreds of environmentalists walked out near the end of the conference because they saw how futile the whole process had become, the great powers–read: the major polluters–agreed to come up with volunteer notions of how much they should restrict their gluttonous appetites for fossil fuels. Sorry to sound so dour, but how are we to respond to these annual outrages?

As for reparations to developing countries that have historically had but a miniscule piece of the atmospheric pie, good luck. If you’ll recall the $100 billion pledge made by the major polluters in Copenhagen in 2009, then give yourself a pat on the back because those who actually made the promise have largely forgotten the hot air they expelled back then. Certainly, there is no serious discussion of providing funds for adaption to the countries most directly affected by rising seas or extreme weather.

Which, naturally–or not, if you view Typhoon Haiyan as linked to industrial excesses–leads us to the manner in which that storm overshadowed the COP. I found an interesting bit of reportage in Gwynne Dyer’s column this week, which I had not run across in the reams of coverage I’ve read elsewhere. Dyer notes that the worst typhoon on record to slam the Philippines was Thelma, which killed about 5,100 in 1991. “But of the next worst nine, all of which killed over a thousand people, six have happened in the past decade: 2004, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2012, and 2013.”

As Dyer, and many other observers, including virtually all of the world’s climate scientists have warned, extreme weather is heralding the new normals we’re increasing facing.

You wouldn’t have known that by the deportment of the great polluters in Warsaw, but then we’ve come to expect so very little that their paltry promises make headlines, even as they fool fewer people every year.

Here’s the link to Dyer’s website.  Alas, I could not find a link to the column in question.

https://gwynnedyer.com/