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Saturday, December 11, 2010

Isn't "Triangulation" Just Another Way of Saying "Makes Political Deals?"

Catch of the Day

Mori Dinauer:

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2010

Perfect.

I've seen a variety of attempts at defining triangulation over the last few days; Dinauer's is my favorite by far.  What is triangulation, really?  I'll tell you, and you'll enjoy it, but first I'll make you sit through a couple of paragraphs about how bills pass in different contexts. 

With unified government, the best course for a president is usually to pass legislation by mobilizing his party.  That's pretty much what Barack Obama did during the 111th Congress.  The trick is going to be, always, to keep the handful at the extreme left (for a Democrat) happy while also appealing to the 218th most liberal Member of the House and the 60th most liberal Senator.  Barack Obama may have, in some sense, wanted to be bipartisan or postpartisan or whatever, but the easiest coalition for almost everything he wanted to get done was going to be highly partisan.

When there's divided government, the calculus changes. While it's still possible that there will be issues in which the easiest winning coalition is constructed beginning with the left and moving to the center, there are other potential available coalitions that involve finding things that both sides really want that the other side doesn't mind that much.  That's obviously the case with the tax cut deal: liberals don't care nearly as much about tax rates for the rich as do conservatives (yes, they care a lot -- but not nearly as much).  Conservatives do not, it seems likely, oppose UI extension nearly as much as liberals favor it.  What this all boils down to is that in the next Congress, there are going to be things that pass with the support of both John Boehner and Barack Obama, and perhaps without the support of some Democrats.  Or else, nothing is going to pass at all.

Now, what's "triangulation" in that context?  Nothing.  Triangulation is an advertising slogan coined by Dick Morris to advertise himself -- to give him as large a share of the credit for Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election as possible.  That's all.  Trying to find any deeper meaning in it is like trying to find the deeper meaning in "Coke Adds Life" or "Tiger in Your Tank."   Might be interesting to do it, but it's not going to tell you much about soft drinks, gasoline, or politics.

That's what those sort of people -- Dick Morris, Karl Rove, James Carville -- do; they make up fancy slogans or theories or whatever as a way of claiming that their mysterious voodoo is irreplaceable.  Now, some are good at what they do, and some are not so good, but the truth is they are for the most part interchangeable; it's mostly luck about who happens to be in the right chair when the music stops.  That is, as much as I do happen to enjoy listening to Carville talk, if his presidential race had been Dukakis '88 or Mondale '84 instead of Clinton '92 (or even if it had been Harkin '92 or Kerrey '92), well, no one would think that crazy guy who looks and talks funny was a genius.  And Carville, I suspect, was awful good at what he did.  Dick Morris?  Has Dick Morris ever said anything that made you believe he was good at anything other than self-promotion?

So: liberals were frustrated in 2009-2010 because Barack Obama had to get Ben Nelson on board, and they're going to be furious sometimes in 2011-2012 because Obama is going to find things that get John Boehner on board.  Liberals, of course, should do what they can to fight for what they want, and make sure that deals that are made are the best deals they can get.  But as for trying to figure out what triangulation is and whether Obama is doing it...well, you're better off trying to figure out whether Danica Patrick is really that into Go Daddy. 
Posted by Jonathan Bernstein at 10:12 AM
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Obama praying for Holbrooke



By Sam Youngman - 12/11/10 08:31 PM ET
President Obama said Saturday night that he phoned ailing Ambassador Richard Holbrooke's wife, Kati, and told her he is praying for Holbrooke.

The former ambassador and Obama's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan was in critical condition after surgery Saturday morning to repair a torn aorta.

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In a statement Saturday night, the president called Holbrooke "a towering figure in American foreign policy, a critical member of my Afghanistan and Pakistan team, and a tireless public servant who has won the admiration of the American people and people around the world."  

"I know that Secretary Clinton, Admiral Mullen, Tom Donilon and other members of our team have been with him at George Washington hospital, and we continue to pray for his recovery, and support his family in this difficult time," Obama said.
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What happens next in the tax standoff: Three scenarios


By Bob Cusack and Michael M. Gleeson - 12/11/10 06:14 PM ET
If the Bush-era tax cuts are going to be extended beyond Dec. 31, someone is going to have to blink.

Most political insiders believe it will be Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her House Democrats. Liberals who believe Obama caved to Republicans say there is no chance that Pelosi will bend.

With an exception here and there, Obama and Pelosi worked well together to pass the stimulus, an overhaul of the nation’s healthcare system and Wall Street reform.

Now, they are clearly at odds.

Pelosi has been careful not to publicly criticize Obama for the tax deal, preferring to attack the GOP provisions in the pact that the president endorsed.

And the standoff between Obama and House Democrats is likely to intensify in the coming week. On Friday, the White House upped its pressure on skeptical House Democrats by touting former President Clinton’s endorsement of the tax accord.

Appearing with Obama, Clinton stressed that the compromise is the best deal Democrats can get.

There are many twists and turns the debate could take over the next week. For example, there has been chatter that the tax deal could be lumped into a continuing resolution or omnibus appropriations bill. Most think the appropriations and tax bills, however, will not be merged.

The following are the most likely three scenarios of how the tax policy dispute will play out in the final days of the 111th Congress.

Scenario No. 1: The Senate passes deal, the House amends the measure and sends it back to the upper chamber, which approves it. Obama signs it into law.

The pending tax cut compromise has the votes to pass both the Senate and the House. The Senate will act first and likely pass it fairly easily. But it can’t pass the House this month unless Pelosi brings it to a vote.

In a non-binding vote, the House Democrats this week emphatically stated they would not vote on the measure unless it is changed.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) said that type of vote – where the caucus instructs leadership how to address a bill – had never happened during his 14 years in the House. Pelosi, he pointed out, listens very closely to what her caucus wants.

Sherman said the bill can get a little better, though Democrats know that if they don’t resolve the matter this month, the incoming GOP majority will make the deal “worse” early next year.

Clinton also made that point during his unusual press conference Friday at the White House, saying, “…the numbers will only get worse [next year] in terms of negotiating…”

Many House Democrats want to change the estate tax and/or the unemployment provisions.

Tinkering with the accord’s stipulation on the estate tax could cause the entire deal to collapse.

Extending unemployment beyond the 13 months in the agreed-upon package could also blow it up.

Some Democrats are worried the proposed 13-month extension has no chance of being continued when Republicans control the House in the next Congress.

“If the economy does not improve substantially…and we are still are at nine percent unemployment in 13 months, what happens? Are we going to have to beg for unemployment insurance?” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) told The Hill.

Pelosi knows she can’t change the deal too much or the revised measure will never get through the Senate. Her goal is to make changes that may not satisfy Senate conservatives, but will attract a few Republican votes.

“We don’t need 35 Republican senators [to vote yes],” Sherman said.

In many ways, this scenario would pit Pelosi versus Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The matchup favors the Kentucky Republican, who has shown throughout the Congress that he can unite his GOP colleagues.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and the White House on Thursday night put some sweeteners for liberals in the bill. There is no indication, however, that those green-energy incentives have appeased Pelosi and her lieutenants.

During an appearance on MSNBC’s “Countdown” show Friday, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) said, “We need to change it dramatically.”

If Pelosi is able to strike a new deal with the White House and it passes, it will represent a rare victory for House Democrats over the Senate. More than 400 House-passed bills are still awaiting action in the upper chamber.

Scenario No. 2: The Senate approves the deal, the House amends it, and gridlock ensues.

If Democrats change as much as a comma in the deal, congressional Republicans could walk away. It is especially noteworthy that some powerful players on the right, including Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, are opposed to the plan.

Government scorekeepers say the bill costs $857.8 billion over 10 years, more than the 2009 stimulus.

That price tag could go higher if Democrats change the unemployment benefit provisions.

Should Democrats change the bill, Republicans could blame them and refuse to cooperate. Tax cuts would increase for everyone on Jan. 1 and likely create an enormous uproar across the country.

Like any high-profile issue, the tax debate has been highly partisan, but it would be very difficult for Obama to blame congressional Republicans if House Democrats do not pass his bill.

Clinton on Friday warned against this possibility, which he called a “Mexican standoff.”

If the tax cuts expire, House Republicans would pass a new bill early in the 112th Congress while lambasting Democrats for hurting the economy.

In making his case for Obama’s proposal, Vice President Joe Biden told House Democrats to take it or leave it, indicating the pact would not be changed.

Pelosi and House Democrats would be weakening their president if this scenario played out. There would plenty of blame to go around, but much of it would be directed at the president as he and his advisers are game planning his reelection bid.

Still, few think this scenario will play out.

Others are not so sure.

In part, Pelosi was elected by her caucus as minority leader to challenge deals Obama makes with the GOP. Some political observers contend House liberals, who lost their majority on Nov. 2, have the least to lose compared to Obama, Reid, McConnell and Speaker-designate John Boehner (R-Ohio).

Conversely, the repercussions of not acting could play out for years to come, with some saying House Democrats would cement their minority status.

Unlike healthcare reform, liberals point out that polls shows that a majority of voters do not support extending tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 a year. They contend this is a winning issue and need to make a stand.

Scenario No. 3: Senate passes the deal, House Democrats bend and agree to vote on the legislation, and it is signed into law.

Most aides, lawmakers and lobbyists believe this is the most probable scenario.

With time running out in the Congress, there is little time for bills to go back and forth between the House and Senate.

Democratic conservatives in the lower chamber who survived their reelection bids are frustrated with their leaders. They have criticized their actions on healthcare and climate change, and want the tax debate to be taken off the table – at least for the time being.

The left, ranging from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow to Ralph Nader, have ripped the president.

Pelosi, who fought strongly for the public option in healthcare reform, could attract criticism if she bends to the wishes of the White House and Senate Democrats.

It would also set the tone for how Pelosi and her caucus are treated in the next Congress, where it is likely more compromises will be reached between Obama and congressional Republicans.

The difference between now and then is that Pelosi, at least for the moment, still holds the Speaker’s gavel.

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Spanish lessons for the GOP



By Edward Schumacher-Matos
Saturday, December 11, 2010; A17 

Newt Gingrich is learning Spanish. Bless his heart.
This is the same person who three years ago called Spanish "the language of living in a ghetto." He quickly apologized and last week hosted his own forum on Latino issues. The only profile in semi-courage among the Republican presidential wannabes, Gingrich even says what no other major Republican is willing to utter.
"We are not going to deport 11 million people," he said at the forum. "There has to be some zone between deportation and amnesty."
There is. It is called comprehensive immigration reform. Or at least the motherhood-and-apple-pie Dream Act, which congressional Republicans are blocking this week. But we knew this was going to happen.
Gingrich represents something new at the top of the party, especially compared with the likes of Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. Like Saint Peter before the crow of the cock, they conveniently forget their earlier support for legalizing most unauthorized immigrants.
Jeb Bush is reemerging from his shell, too. The favorite Anglo of many Latinos, Bush has a Mexican wife, is simpatico and really does habla Espaol - fluently. He accuses both parties of playing politics with immigration but stops short of pushing reform like his brother George did. Jeb's Latino strategy has been to nurture his star pupil, Florida Sen.-elect Marco Rubio.
Add other newly elected Republican Latinos to the launches of Fox News Latino and the Heritage Foundation's Libertad.org, and suddenly making nice with Hispanics has become an incipient Republican cottage industry.
Let us hope it grows enough to shut down the hateful rhetoric and demonizing of Latinos by too many Republicans in recent years. Who cares if the change is done out of political self-interest? Latinos are an estimated 16 percent of the population and growing faster than the rest.
So to help the Grand Old Party, let me explain why even its enlightened leaders will fail if they don't understand why what happens to unauthorized immigrants is so crucial to Latinos. It is all about culture and family values.
The Republican kick-'em-out crowd may say their concern is legal and economic - exaggerated but real concerns - but many studies show that cultural fear is a strong and possibly overriding force. The fear is a natural oneof being overrun by Spanish speakers and a foreign culture, whether the immigrants are here legally or not.
Hispanics are assimilating as did immigrant groups before them, and much of the country has come to see diversity as a fundamental American value. Gingrich knows this. But the deportation advocates have cowed the Republican Party with a message of rejection and hate that most Latinos take personally.
In a Pew poll released just before the midterm election, 61 percent of Latinos said that discrimination against Hispanics was a "major problem," up from 54 percent just three years ago. Nearly 80 percent oppose thepapers-please Arizona law.
The fear of deportation is so palpable among Latinos that fully 52 percent of those surveyed told Pew they worry "a lot" or "some" that they, a family member or a close friend could be deported. Among immigrants, the proportion shot up to 68 percent. Even a third of native-born Latinos shared this gut-wrenching fear.
Meanwhile, unauthorized immigrants aren't the single men of yore. Two-thirds of the unauthorized adults are married or live with a partner, and nearly half live with children. This compares with 21 percent of native-born American adults who live with children.
You kick out one unauthorized adult, in other words, and you are likely to break up a family. The children of 37 percent of the adults, moreover, are U.S. citizens.
This and a Christian sense of forgiveness are among the reasons the culturally powerful Catholic Church and even the national organization of Hispanic evangelical church leaders, who are mostly Republican, support a path to citizenship.
Sure, some Latinos are kick-'em-out, too. Rubio, for example, recently turned his coat and joined them, but he is Cuban American. Cubans don't worry about deportation; they get automatic political refugee status if they sneak in illegally.
In the Pew poll, only 13 percent of Latinos agreed with deporting the unauthorized. That is not a good base from which to grow the Republican Party.



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Stockholm attack follows terror warning

STOCKHOLM SUICIDE BOMBING
Stockholm attack follows terror warnings

Published: 12 Dec 10 00:29 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation 


The attack in Stockholm on Saturday evening would, if confirmed to be a terror attack, be the first time Sweden has been targeted by a suicide bomber. 
The Swedish Security Service (Säpo), raised its threat level to “elevated” in early October, the first time the Swedish authorities have been on such a high level of alert. 

The level was raised after Sweden's National Centre for Terrorist Threat Assessment (NCT) said there had been "a shift in activities among certain groups in Sweden, judged to be targeted at Sweden."

Säpo also reported in October that it believed a handful of Swedish residents had travelled to Pakistan and Afghanistan to attend terrorist training camps. 

John Daniels of the Swedish Military Intelligence and Security Service said at the time that a number of people in Sweden had “the intention and the capacity to carry out attacks agains Swedish targets.”

Until now, though, such warnings have not translated into attacks on the ground. Previously uncovered Sweden-related terror plots have targeted specific individuals or have involved Swedish-based extremists aiming to attack targets abroad.

Swedish artist Lars Vilks has been the target of numerous threats after he portrayed Muhammad, the Muslim prophet, as a dog. American Colleen R. LaRose, also known as ‘JihadJane,’ was charged last year with trying to recruit terrorists to murder him.

Sweden’s military presence in Afghanistan, as part of the Nato-lined ISAF force, has also been put forward as possibly raising the threat to Sweden.

The apparent realisation of the threat against Sweden was a worry, a top Swedish terror expert said on Saturday:

“It’s extremely disconcerting that terror is now indiscriminately targeting civilians in Sweden,” Magnus Ranstorp, a security expert from the Swedish National Defence College (Försvarshögskolan) told Aftonbladet following the blasts, adding that they marked a “break” with previous trends.

He explained that suicide bombers rarely act on their own, but often receive psychological and other types of support from others.

“This individual didn’t act alone,” said Ranstorp.

“Based on my experience, it’s one thing if it’s just a car fire. But to go and put together pipe bombs and sacrifice your life – I’d be very surprised if he didn’t have contact with other individuals.”

Ranstorp cautioned, however, that it was too early to say whether the man who apparently blew himself up in Stockholm on Saturday has ties to any established terrorist networks.

Much of the Swedish anti-terror effort has in recent years been focused on Swedes of Somali descent working for Somalian terror organization al-Shabaab. According to Säpo, the al-Qaeda linked group has recruited more than 20 young people from Sweden to fight in the war-torn African country.

In Wednesday, just days prior to Saturday's blasts, two Swedish citizens of Somali origin who were members of al-Shabaab were sentenced to prison by a Swedish court for "planning terrorist crimes" in Somalia.

In a separate incident, three people arrested in an investigation into an alleged terror plot in Gothenburg in October were released without charge after police decided that the men posed no credible threat.

Despite Saturday's suicide attack, Säpo has no plans to heighten Sweden's threat level, Sveriges Television (SVT) reported.
James Savage
news@thelocal.se
08 656 6518
For more pics, tips and news from Stockholm - visit The Local's new Stockholm section.
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Witnesses tell of Stockholm bomb terror

SSTOCKHOLM SUICIDE BOMBING
Witnesses tell of Stockholm bomb terror


Published: 11 Dec 10 23:12 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation 

Eyewitnesses have told of the moment an apparent suicide bomber blew himself up just a stone's throw from Stockholm's busiest shopping street on Saturday.
"We were scared to death," said one local resident.

The man died on the intersection of the Drottninggatan thoroughfare and Bryggargatan, a side street.

An eyewitness interviewed by the Dagens Nyheter newspaper (DN) said something appeared to have blown up against the man’s abdomen. 

“He had no injuries to his face or the rest of his body and the shops around him were not damaged,” he said.

The eyewitness, a paramedic identified only as Pascal, said he removed a ‘Palestinian scarf’ from the man’s face in an attempt to free up his airways. Next to the man’s body was a two-metre piece of metal piping.

Other eyewitness at the scene said the man shouted something in Arabic before the bomb detonated, according to newspaper Aftonbladet.

Aftonbladet also quoted local resident Tarja, who was at home close to where the bomb went off:

“The whole house shook. We were scared to death and went outside, where we saw a dead person on the street. There were paramedics and police there but they weren’t doing anything,” she said.

A shopworker from a store on Drottninggatan said she “heard a huge bang, then people ran down Drottninggatan. We then closed the store, and the street became completely empty.”
The Local (news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518)
For more pics, tips and news from Stockholm - visit The Local's new Stockholm section.TOCKHOLMSTOCKHOLM SUICIDE BOMBING SUICIDE BOMBING
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STOCKHOLM SUICIDE BOMBING


One dead after suicide bombing in Stockholm

One dead after suicide bombing in Stockholm

Published: 11 Dec 10 21:37 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation
Updated: 12 Dec 10 01:24 CET
Two nearly simultaneous explosions rocked central Stockholm on Saturday evening, killing one person and injuring two others in what is believed to be a suicide attack.
The fatal blast occurred just minutes after a car exploded on another nearby street sending two people to hospital.

Roughly ten minutes before the explosions, Swedish news agency TT received an email telling Muslims in Sweden and Europe it was "time to take action".

Sveriges Television (SVT) reported that both explosions, which occurred about 200 metres from one another, were part of a suicide attack in the Swedish capital. 

Writing from his Twitter account shortly after midnight on Saturday night, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt referred to the incident as a "terrorist attack".

"Most worrying attempt at terrorist attack in crowded part of central Stockholm," wrote Bildt.

"Failed -- but could have been truly catastrophic..." he added.

Bildt's comments, sent from his Twitter account, effectively confirmed earlier reports in the Swedish media that the two almost simultaneous explosions had been an attack.

The first blast in the car left two passers-by in need of hospital treatment for minor injuries, said emergency services spokesperson Bengt Norberg.

A second alert was received two minutes later and one person was found dead at the scene of the second blast which took place in the street, he added.

"I cannot confirm that the death is linked to the explosion of the car but I cannot deny it either," police spokeswoman Petra Sjolandero told AFP.

She added that the car caught fire "following a series of explosions which could have been from gas canisters."

Police later told the TT news agency that the car explosion was caused by cannisters containing liquefied petroleum gas.

According to the TT news agency, police are operating under the assumption that the man who died wasn’t injured in a car explosion but instead blew himself up.

The first emergency calls came in at 4.52pm on Saturday, with police fielding dozens of calls about a car exploding at the intersection of Drottninggatan and Olof Palmes gata in central Stockholm.

“We’ve received at least 50 calls to 112,” said Norberg told TT, referring to Sweden’s emergency telephone number.

Later, a man was found dead at the intersection of Bryggargatan and Drottninggatan.

A man who arrived on the scene before the police arrived told the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper that the dead man had a large wound in his abdomen. 

“It looked like the man was carrying something that exploded on his stomach. He didn’t have any injuries to his face or his body and the stores nearby weren’t damaged. All the windows were whole,” the witness told DN.

The body was still lying in the street at 11pm on Saturday evening as police continued their investigation.

"They are still at the scene working and at this point we have nothing new to report," police spokesperson Kjell Lindgren told TT.

A bomb squad from the Stockholm police was examining the scene following the explosion. 

According to the Stockholm police, a bag was found nearby the man who died in the second explosion. 

Police refused to divulge details about the bag's contents. However, several Swedish media outlets report that the bag was filled with nails.

Members of the Stockholm police force met with counterparts from Swedish security service Säpo for several hours on Saturday evening and were unavailable for comment.

Approximately ten minutes before the explosions occurred, Swedish news agency TT received an email, also addressed to Säpo, in which a reached out to “Sweden and the Swedish people”.

He cites Sweden’s silence surrounding the cartoons by Swedish Lars Vilks which portray the prophet Mohammed as a dog, the Swedish troops in Afghanistan, saying in audio files attached to the email that “now your children, daughters and sisters die like our brothers’ and sisters’ children die”.

“Our actions will speak for themselves. As long as you don’t stop your war against Islam and degrading the prophet and your stupid support of that pig Vilks,” the man said.

The man also urges all Muslims in Sweden to “stop sucking up to and degrading”. He concludes the message with yet another call to “all the mujahedeen in Europe and Sweden”.

“Now it’s time to act, don’t wait any longer. Fear no one, don’t fear prison, don’t fear death.”

Säpo hasn’t commented to TT on the contents of the message or confirmed that it also received the email, which included audio files in both Swedish and Arabic.

There is also no confirmation that the message has anything to do with the explosions.

However, Säpo later confirmed for the Aftonbladet newspaper that the agency had received the same email that was sent to TT.

“It came into our registry. It was handed over to our case officer for review,” Säpo spokesperson Michael Gunnarsson told the newspaper.

The audio files attached to the email don’t specify if the man belonged to any organisation. However, he does say he has been to the Middle East and that he asked his family for forgiveness for lying to them.

“I never went to the Middle East to work or earn money, I went there for jihad,” said the man.

Speaking with SVT shortly before 1am on Sunday morning, Stockholm police spokesperson Ulf Göranzon said police were still not ready to confirm that the man found dead following Saturday's blast had killed himself in a suicide attack.

"We haven't been able to ascertain how this person died, and therefore I have comment on that," he said.

In addition to investigating how the man died, police are also working on establishing his identity, Göranzon added.

He also refused to comment on the contents of the bag found next to the man, nor would he confirm whether or not the two explosions were related.

However, Göranzon admitted that police were "thinking along those lines" in part because the explosions took place so close to one another.
TT/AFP/The Local (news@thelocal.se)

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Cancun: Politics vs. Science


— By Kate Sheppard
| Wed Dec. 1, 2010 1:49 PM PST
There are quite a few numbers tossed around at climate negotiations. Should world leaders agree to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius in the next decade, or 1.5? How many gigatons of carbon can the world cut in ten years? Should they shoot for reducing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, or can the world deal with 450 parts per million? The numbers can be daunting, and discussions of them can get, well, heated. But they often avoid the reality that we're already on the path to dangerous warming, and the actions countries have put forward so far aren't nearly strong enough to avert dangerous warming.
A set of papers from the United Kingdom's Royal Society takes a look at the implications of the current path in a new set of reports. If action isn't taken, they conclude, the world is likely to warm 4 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit) in the next 50 years. Despite the political goal of 2 degrees drafted in Copenhagen last year, the continued rise in emissions and the delay of a legally binding deal, the researchers conclude, means the world is going to exceed that goal.
The reports offer a stark contrast to the political negotiations here in Cancun. "[T]here is now little to no chance of maintaining the global mean surface temperature at or below 2 C," write Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and Alice Bows of the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences at the University of Manchester in one of the key papers. And new findings about the impacts of a 2-degree rise indicated that the goal"now more appropriately represents the threshold between 'dangerous' and 'extremely dangerous’ climate change."
Another paper, from scientists at the UK's Met Office Hadley Centre and the College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences at the University of Exeter predicts that the world is likely to reach a 4 degree temperature rise in the 2070s. But if the climatic reactions are stronger than scientists currently expect, the world could hit that mark in the 2060s, they conclude.
The Copenhagen Accord pledged to "hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius." But not only are the pledges to cut emissions that countries have offered so far not legally binding, they also fall far short of meeting that goal. Even if countries followed through on their pledges, they'd only be 60 percent of the way toward meeting that goal.
Thus, scientists need to look more closely at how the climate system will react to that level of increase, and the implications it will have around the world, the Royal Society package recommends. Leaders will also need to start preparing for and reacting to warming that exceeds their stated goal.
"Everyone is realizing that the Copenhagen pledge is not enough," said Kevin Bundy, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. But here in Cancun, leaders are still focused on hashing out how to meet last year's goals—or if they will ever formalize even those weak commitments in a new, legally binding treaty.
"There is no sense of that urgency here in this conference, or not anywhere near enough," said Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, a group formed to spur world leaders to keep greenhouse gas concentrations under that parts-per-million mark. "It appears too difficult for our leaders and negotiators to understand the science."
"Political reality is important, it's not to be underestimated," he continued. "But it's nowhere near as difficult to deal with as the reality of chemistry and physics."

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    • Orkneygal 12/01/2010 09:37 PM
      The overwhelming paleoclimate evidence from around the globe is that the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), the Roman Warm Period and the Minoan Warming were synchronous, world wide and much warmer than today.

      However, the MWP deniers, such as the IPCC, US EPA, CSIRO and the UK’s MET Office, will never admit the existence of the MWP because it means that their religious-like belief in AGW is exposed for the steaming pile of junk science that it truly is.

      In total, climate change is complex and not well understood.

      But this part is simple.

      Since the world was warmer when CO2 levels were lower, CO2 cannot be the earth's temperature regulator. There must be other factors.

      In the past, the Earth was warmer than it is today; before the social and industrial advances that have made modern people the healthiest and most prosperous in history. MWP deniers want us to believe that plant friendly and life giving CO2 is a bad thing to better advance their meglomanical desire to both boss around the developed world and further impoverish the poor while pocketing a lot of taxpayer money along the way.

      Useless, misguided attempts to control carbon are not the answer to the ever changing climate.There is only one answer to changes in climate that has ever worked for humanity.

      That is adaptation.

      One of the many links to the overwhelming Paleoclimate evidence of the global nature of the MWP is below.

      http://www.co2science.org/data...

      More information

      http://www.intechopen.com/arti...
    • SecularAnimist 12/02/2010 08:57 AM
      The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, whose website Orkneygal linked to above, is a denialist propaganda mill funded by ExxonMobil and Koch Industries, whose mission is to crank out pseudo-scientific bunk in the interest of delaying the phase-out of fossil fuels and maintaining the profits of its funders.

      Orkneygal also links to a chapter by Fredrik Ljungqvist, in an anthology entitled Climate Change And Variability published in August 2010, in support of her claim that the so-called "Medieval warm period" was global in extent. However, the chapter she cites does not in fact make that claim, and the author states in his conclusion that "it is clear that the temperatures of the last few decades exceed those of any multi-decadal period in the last 700–800 years."

      Ljungqvist also has a more recent, peer-reviewed study, "A New Reconstruction Of Temperature Variability In The Extra-Tropical Northern Hemisphere During The Last Two Millennia", published in September in Geografiska Annaler: Series A, Physical Geography, the abstract of which notes (emphasis added):

      "The temperature of the last two decades, however, is possibly higher than during any previous time in the past two millennia, although this is only seen in the instrumental temperature data and not in the multi-proxy reconstruction itself. Our temperature reconstruction agrees well with the reconstructions by Moberg et al. (2005) and Mann et al. (2008) ..."

      For those who may not recognize the reference, "Mann et al. (2008)" refers to the so-called "Hockey Stick" reconstruction, which mentally disturbed conspiracy theorists like Orkneygal routinely, slanderously and baselessly denounce as a "hoax".

      So what Orkneygal has just done is to cite research that confirms Mann's "Hockey Stick" reconstruction, in an attempt to support her ludicrous claim that the "Hockey Stick" reconstruction is a hoax.

      Of course, this is the sort of idiotic thing that mental slaves of ExxonMobil-funded Ditto-Head Science do all the time: they robotically copy-and-paste drivel from denialist websites (it's a good guess that Orkneygal grabbed the Ljungqvist link from Anthony Watts), without any comprehension of, and typically without even reading, the stuff they are posting.

      It would be little more than low-grade slapstick comedy if the problem of global warming were not so serious.
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