No guts in Copenhagen

Another great speech by Mr. Obama as he accepted his Nobel peace prize in Oslo. And yet, something is so glaringly odd about this (besides that he is a "war" president getting a peace prize) made even odder by the BBC et al glossing right over it. A big fermata of analysis. That is if he is, as he says, practically compelled to wage a "just war", to protect America, and if he is, as he says, determined to do so unilaterally if need be, if he can use his office to initiate war, why then is he not able to likewise use his office to sign the treaty on global warming? Is it not also a war against a force that America needs protection from? What more of a "just" cause can there be than doing everything possible to stop further damage to the earth's atmosphere? But he needs the votes of the senate to do this?

Clearly, we cannot wait for them, Obama, whomever, to act. It would probably really help if we had a kind of rationing program, like the U.S.A. had in World War II. People respond to structure and working together towards a goal. So we are left to find self imposed ways of rationing ourselves. Not easy, as we are enmeshed in a system that encourages wasteful and shortsighted acts, but can be a fun challenge to do whatever small thing we can control to reduce carbon emissions.