Bob Morris Takes On COP 11 (edition 2)

Bob COP 11 Dispatch No. 2
Bob Morris, Montreal, Dec. 3, 2005

Maybe it was the nasty cold that has been gaining ground, or the rain/sleet/snow, or the legion of security officers looking every inch lie the Secret Service people I left behind in D. C., or my problems as a first time user of a French keyboard on an antiquated Apple computer to send out my first dispatch. Whatever the reason by 2:00 PM I was pretty much ready to say that my presence here was not going to be productive and I ought to cut my trip short. I poked my head in a couple of side bar meetings on energy efficiency and a Mexican pilot voluntary emissions reduction program, but I didn’t learn anything that will help Sierra Club enlist humanity or convince our government to make America a world leader in building a new energy economy based on clean power and climate protection.

So I bought some Dayquil, stopped for a latte and thought about Cesar Chavez. Then I went back into the hall and introduced myself to different people (who weren’t busy on cell phones), asked them what they were trying to accomplish here and discussed how we could help each other. Here is what I got:

(First a diversion. Why do people pay a fortune to come to something like this and then spend all their time on cell phones talking with the people who they see every day and who didn’t make the trip? I saw the same thing in my business career: people would drive to get someplace and see a branch of their business and then spend most of the time on the phone talking with their home office, ignoring the real people right in front of them that they traveled to see. Hello! This is not a productive use of time or money.)

Back to reporting. There is a big push for nuclear energy to be revived as a clean, green option. The young, attractive professionals from the unfortunately named Envi Rad Consulting Services tried to convince me that they had solved the operational safety and transport problems by telling me that the people responsible for doing these jobs said that there had been no leakages…well, except for Chernobyl. “The French,” they proudly announced, “are now recycling their waste so there is no more storage problem either.” They were a little short on facts and details as I asked questions and admitted that maybe they were a little naïve when they stated that if there had been problems the responsible authorities would have reported them, but insisted they just needed to work on their “communications skills” and they had the hard science in hand. The irony of having heard the same refrain among fellow Global Warming activists didn’t make their assertion any less scary.

Next I talked to the French guys who had a booth touting their Climate Change initiatives. They confirmed that they had an active recycling program for nuclear waste, but the recovery wasn’t 100% and they couldn’t give me any estimate of how much waste remained after the recycling process. Someone else gave me a flyer saying Dr. Patrick Moore, “co-founder of Greenpeace” was going to give a pro-nuclear talk on Monday. That makes three co-founders of Greenpeace that I have heard about.

I got some good data showing that the external costs of cars in Europe per 1000 passenger kilometers are 76 euro, air is 52.5, bus is 37.7 and rail is 22.9. External costs include accidents, air pollution, up and down stream processes, climate change, noise, nature and landscapes and urban effects. I think you can get the details at WWW.INFRAS.CH.

Ms. Peace at Pew Center for Global Climate Change said we should contact the Pew Trust to help fund our grassroots program to enlist humanity in building a new energy future based on clean power and climate protection. As soon as we get a good plan together I think we should do that. A very pleasant gentleman from Belize with Mainstream Adaptation to Climate Change advised that we form a speakers bureau of the leaders of government, industry and non profits who have led successful initiative to reduce carbon emissions, giving emphasis to progress that is being made. He suggested Ms. Peace from Pew as a candidate.

The man at Sweden’s booth and I talked about the possibility of Sweden and Sierra Club working together to persuade our U. S. government to take a pro-active stance on climate change instead of being an obstacle to progress. We didn’t come up with any concrete ideas, but said we would circulate the idea. I also talked with people from non-profits who were eager to explain very esoteric models of things like “convergence and contraction”, but the more questions I asked the more confused we both got and they usually said that the “real expert” would be there at some future time.

I’ll have to think some more about whether I should stay the week I planned or cut it short. It won’ surprise those who know me that I am impatient with our inability to get the attention of our U. S. delegation. I think we should get a couple of dozen U. S. activists together and stand near where ever the delegation is located, wearing plain paper bags over our heads and holding signs that say, “Proud U. S. citizen ashamed of my government’s position on climate change.” That would get their attention!