{"id":1371,"date":"2010-11-15T22:12:08","date_gmt":"2010-11-16T03:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/11\/15\/slouching-toward-the-cancun-bar\/"},"modified":"2010-11-15T22:12:08","modified_gmt":"2010-11-16T03:12:08","slug":"slouching-toward-the-cancun-bar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/11\/15\/slouching-toward-the-cancun-bar\/","title":{"rendered":"slouching toward the Cancun bar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peaksurfer<\/a>‘s Albert Bates has a very good article up called The Great Change: Slouching towards Cancun<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A few tidbits:<\/p>\n

\n

Because of the huge outpouring of non-profit energy, money and effort at Copenhagen last year, and the subsequent meltdown of the Copenhagen round, the approach to this year\u2019s COP (Conference of Parties to the Framework Climate Convention) has been like a drunk waking up with a really bad hangover. A hot shower and several carafes of coffee later, many are really wondering if we want to go back into the bar again tonight.<\/p>\n

There is fresh meat in Cancun, including some inexperienced groups still enamored of the vision of a low carbon future that might be achieved just by signing a few international agreements, eating fewer animals, driving hybrid cars and changing light bulbs.<\/p>\n

To the veterans, who are less like drunks and more like near-suicidal PTSD sufferers, a dramatic reduction of energy consumption in a complex society seems quite unlikely, absent some catastrophic event, which in their darker moments some have even begun to hope for. Even Peak Oil is moving too slowly, with shale gas and biofuels propping up near-term supplies. We need a supervolcano.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

Political and military power seeks only to continue itself, by any expediency, no matter how short-sighted. Student protests over tuition increases and most labor union agendas fall into this same expediency. Sooner or later, they are all as deer, frozen in the headlight of an approaching freight train. Nothing in their cultural conditioning or centuries of military history has prepared them for this moment. Nature is no machine, and she is angry when revved up.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I recommend the whole article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peaksurfer‘s Albert Bates has a very good article up called The Great Change: Slouching towards Cancun. A few tidbits: Because of the huge outpouring of non-profit energy, money and effort at Copenhagen last year, and the subsequent meltdown of the Copenhagen round, the approach to this year\u2019s COP (Conference of Parties to the Framework Climate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[196],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecoculture"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-m7","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1626,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/12\/14\/cancun-what-just-happened\/","url_meta":{"origin":1371,"position":0},"title":"Cancun: what just happened?","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 14, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Making sense of what happened at the COP 16 global climate change summit in Cancun is not easy, especially when environmental and climate justice activists seem so intensely divided among themselves (and when the mass media has paid so little attention to it all). Democracy Now yesterday pitted Friends of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1165,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/12\/17\/copenhagen-changing-the-climate-of-democracy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1371,"position":1},"title":"Copenhagen: changing the climate of democracy","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What makes COP-15 a turning point is that a new set of connections are being forged in the heat of the confrontation of active citizens from around the world with the reality of global political-economic power structures. Paul Hawken\u2019s \u201clargest movement in the world,\u201d the movement of movements made up\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"cop-15-last-chance-2.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2009\/12\/cop-15-last-chance-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1382,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/12\/02\/gleanings\/","url_meta":{"origin":1371,"position":2},"title":"gleanings","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Scientists found that Asian and American brains respond completely differently when faced with images of dominance and submission, and when evaluating character traits of themselves as opposed to other people. Asians and Americans gathered with other world leaders to fiddle at a Mexican resort while buildings burned. [. . .]\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7452,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2014\/04\/10\/anthropocene-aesthetics\/","url_meta":{"origin":1371,"position":3},"title":"Anthropocene aesthetics","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 10, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Cross-posting this piece by Emil from A(s)cene. Taylor's coral reef art is beautiful. See also the discussion of Donna Haraway's \"String Figures\" lecture and Bruno Latour's 11 theses on capitalism.\u00a0 \u00a0 Last week, Lee led us through an\u00a0exercise\u00a0that helped to contextualize the minuteness of the period in which humans (and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthropocene"","block_context":{"text":"Anthropocene","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/anthropo_scene\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"anthropocene-001-jason-decaires-taylor-sculpture","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv-acene\/files\/2014\/04\/anthropocene-001-jason-decaires-taylor-sculpture-300x206.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1146,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/11\/02\/ostrom-on-climate-change\/","url_meta":{"origin":1371,"position":4},"title":"Ostrom on climate change","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"November 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Derek Wall at the eco-lefty Another Green World has just alerted us to an excellent piece new Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom has written on the climate change debate. Please read it, ye Copenhagen-bound.","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1162,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/12\/02\/from-cap-trade-to-apocalypse\/","url_meta":{"origin":1371,"position":5},"title":"From Cap & Trade to apocalypse","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=pA6FSy6EKrM&hl=en_US&fs=1& Annie Leonard's Free Range Studios, whose viral video The Story of Stuff made some waves a little while back, has now produced a critique of the Cap and Trade system, some version of which is the most likely outcome of negotiations taking place in Copenhagen over the coming days.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Climate change"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/pA6FSy6EKrM\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}