“Yes we can!”
Umm, actually no we can’t.
It soon became clear that China was not signing up to any treaty that allowed other countries to snoop around in their dirty emissions laundry.
Show all over
I mean snow, of course. And not just in Copenhagen either.
I know, I know. This is weather, not climate. I’m not stupid. Or more stupider than the next guy, I mean.
At the same time a draft document was leaked that would ask the world to keep temperature rise below 2C (3.6F). It would ask rich countries to cut greenhouse gases, but does not yet have legally-binding numerical targets. It would also ask developing countries to take action to reduce emissions for the first time. The leaked text caused anger among delegates just as President Obama arrived at the conference to “save the Earth”.
Our coal doesn’t stink
You count them. Environment here, global warming there (while pointing the finger at everybody else in both directions at the same time), when it comes to building new coal-burning power plants in Germany, well, that’s different. No protests in the streets here (or in Copenhagen) about that one.
“The following list shows the status of controversial new coal-fired power plant projects in Germany, which are the focus of environmentalists campaigning against climate-harming carbon emissions from the coal-to-power generation process.”
Sale is a bad word here
Or at least it’s a really annoying (nervig) and superfluous (überflüssig) one. That’s how the Association of the Friends of the German Language voted this year. They prefer the German word for sale, it seems. Whatever the hell that is.
And the word they liked for 2009 was Abwrackprämie (cash for clunkers), which is also a German word for sale, kind of.
I don’t take these folks all that seriously, though, nor should you. Their website doesn’t even offer an English version link thingy.
Der 1997 gegründete VDS mit mehr als 31.000 Mitgliedern bezeichnet sich selbst als „die weltweit größte Sprach-Bürgerbewegung“.
From Copenhagen with Lust
Looks like negotiations are starting to get pretty hot and heavy up there.
Come on, everybody. Do what you can to bring down the planet’s temperature. NOW!
Global-warming summiteers have been told it’s uncool to buy hookers, but prostitutes have turned a trick of their own: heating up the atmosphere in Copenhagen by offering free sex to delegates.
I predict that there will be more dire predictions next year too
Astrologists and other doomsayers aren’t what they used to be. No, wait a minute. Nonsense. Why of course they are.
And the Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften (The Skeptics) has proven it yet again. Of the 140 predictions put out there for 2009 by some 50 well-known psychic, clairvoyant types, none of them were right. None of them except the one from the guy who predicted that Boris Becker would get married again, I mean. And that was a tough one, right?
Natural disasters had a bad year too, despite all the dire predictions. But there will be a more detailed analysis on why that was from the Clairvoyants of Copenhagen later on this week, I’m sure. Or maybe not. But still.
“Vorhersagen-Klassiker seien auch Naturkatastrophen, wie beispielsweise Stürme in der Karibik.”
“Tricks” are for kids
The Copenhagen Diagnosis? I’d say it’s something like “the show must go on.”
“The e-mails show some of the world’s top experts decided to exclude or manipulate some research that didn’t help prove global warming exists.
1998 was the hottest year since record-keeping began…but the temperature went down the next year, and it’s only spiked a couple times since.”
Der Watergate-Skandal brachte Richard Nixon zu Fall, Monica-Gate zerstörte die Glaubwürdigkeit Bill Clintons, und jetzt also Klima-Gate – der Verdacht, dass der menschengemachte Klimawandel nicht mehr ist als nur eine Verschwörung unter Klimaforschern.
Annika B.
It’s us against Google, yet again
Google Book Search bad. German Digital Library good.
Upset and suspicious about Google’s attempts to digitalize books, pictures, sculptures, notes, music and films to make them available for everybody on the Internet, the German Cabinet has just agreed on a plan to digitalize books, pictures, sculptures, notes, music and films to make them available for everybody on the Internet.
I’m not making this up, people. I wouldn’t be able to. Contrary to what you might think, Germans don’t like technology. Not unless its their own, I mean.
Culture Minister Bernd Neumann called the project a “quantum leap into the world of digital information.”
We’d rather help build up a new police state
No pressure here, time or otherwise. Before not committing any new troops to Afghanistan, Germany wants to take all the time it needs to say no more thoroughly and convincingly and much, much later (around February or so). And why not take your time? They’re in the best of company here.
As German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle put it: “President Obama held a very important speech. He also took his time to work out the speech and his strategy and we will take our own time to assess what he said and discuss this with our allies.”
In other words, “no”, like I said. Westerwelle did indicate that Germany is prepared to increase police trainers in Afghanistan, however. That German police training in Afghanistan has been a catastrophe up until now is another question altogether, but still.
“We Germans are ready to do more in the area of police training, because that is the only route to self-sufficient security, to a handover of responsibilities.”
