I try to remind people that the U.N. has not succeeded at much of anything during its history. Mostly it just makes pronouncements and consumes cash. When it comes to doing any real work, they fall down on the job, because most of the people that make up the U.N. have never had to do any real work themselves.
So I hope this lesson on the U.N. to Seth Borenstein sinks in. He’ll hardly forget his day in the cold I’m sure.
Temperature and Weather on Dec14th in Copenhagen: Hi 33 °F Lo 31 °F Humidity average 89%, winds averaged 6 mph for a wind chill of 26°F. Overcast.
From the Climate Pool:
“You have no idea how important water and a bathroom is until you don’t have it,” he said after waiting 7 hours and 20 minutes to enter the Copenhagen climate talks.
With U.N. security letting in only those cleared last week, hundreds of accredited delegates, journalists and NGO representatives were left to stand for hours in near-freezing temperatures before being let through. “It was crazy,” AP’s Seth Borenstein said. “You couldn’t leave the line. You couldn’t go to the bathroom, you couldn’t eat. Then snowflakes started falling. One woman even said, ‘if lightning strikes me, would they take me out of line?'”
People started handing out food — one gave out tangerines, another croissants. A man screamed “I don’t need food. I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.” At one point, a U.N. official announced the wait would be longer, prompting the crowd to boo and chant “Let Us In!”
An Indian TV crew member interviewing actor Rahul Bose quipped “we’ll just do our interviews out here!” to which Bose mused “when bad things happen in a first-world country, it’s really a disaster!”
Seth himself stepped into the line at 7:55 a.m. and was through at 3:15 p.m., but only after another AP reporter, John Heilprin, “saved my bacon” by persuading a U.N. security guard to go out and fetch him. “John was afraid to go out himself in case they wouldn’t let him back in … the first thing I did when I saw him was give him a big hug. I have never been so grateful to be indoors.” Seth’s neighbors in line? “Oh they’re still out there.”
And it looks like they might stay there. With 40,000 people registered and Bella Center’s capacity only 15,000, the U.N. introduced a new quota system and ordered NGOs to cut down their numbers. Police shut down the Bella Center’s subway stop in a bid to ease the congestion. The situation can only get worse as more than 100 heads of state and government, including President Obama, show up this week with their entourages.
Many among the 3,500 accredited journalists worry they may be “locked down” in the press area and kept away from the conference center’s central atrium where delegates, presidents and premiers would circulate.
UPDATE: At 5 p.m., U.N. officials told everyone still in line that accreditation would close at 6 p.m. and so they should leave until Tuesday morning. Police started pulling people out of the crowd, which shouted back “Shame on the U.N.!” The U.N. then apologized for the inconvenience — a gesture met with more booing and chanting.
Katy Daigle is based in London and covers international news for the AP
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And they want the U.N. to run our global carbon system and handle all the money? Hell they can’t even handle the press line.
Ray (15:14:35) :
“Ecotretas (15:00:22) :
Yeah, I’m sure all the dictators in those poor countries will use the Climate Change funds to reduce their carbon footprint… is gun powder fossil or renewable?
(Gunpowder is mainly sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate)”
Actually, thats black powder. Modern smokeless gunpowder is all nitrocellulose (cellulose treated with nitric acid) with some stabilizers added. So its all renewable.
Black powder is mostly ammonium nitrate or potassium nitrate (depending on your source, urea for the first and bird/bat dung for the second), with small amounts of charcoal (20% ) and 5% sulphur. Ammonium nitrate is renewable, potassium nitrate is much less so. Charcoal mostly comes from wood or other cellulosic material.
joshua corning (15:27:43) :
““I try to remind people that the U.N. has not succeeded at much of anything during its history.”
It succeeded in stopping the US and the USSR from ending the world in a nuclear war.”
Joshua, the UN has never been involved in US/USSR treaty negotiations. For most of its history it has been used as a tool of communist expansion and propaganda. Its charter was written by Alger Hiss, Stalin’s spy inside the US state dept and Roosevelt adminstration. At most the UN has been useful for publicly exposing Soviet crimes and expansionism (shipping missiles to Cuba, invading Afghanistan) but was mute on issues where the soviets crushed democratic movements in eastern europe, it betrayed its former Security Council member, Taiwan, in favor of Communist China, and ignored genocides in the former Yugoslavia, Laos, Cambodia, Rwanda, and currently in Darfur.
The UN is largely staffed by people from corrupt countries who practice nepotism and graft as professional sports.
Pull your head out of your World Federalist Society disinfo cloud and start looking at the organization as it is.
The only thing that stopped the US and USSR from going to war directly (other than proxy wars) was the threat of mutual assured destruction.
AdderW (17:18:01) :
“It is truly sad when people misunderstand everything. I’ll guess that you are 12 or mentally retarded?”
There wasn’t anything to understand. Perhaps there was some context in the many comments I didn’t read, but that is irrelevent. I responded to what I read with the knowledge that I have.
In response you felt the need to “elevate” the debate with your quoted insults.
Cheers.
“Jon Jewett (17:21:12) :
Not to worry Ray, once the International Governance Committee takes over control of these United States, then the Metric System will be required under penalty of the law. Just ask the Britons that wanted to use the traditional system of measurement.
Off with their heads!”
It was the same when we Brits wanted to speak (And read the Bible) in English (Olde English that is, not the concoction we use today) rather than French or Latin.
“I don’t need food. I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
For some, incoherent thinking is a sympton of a freezing ass…
All the intelligent people stayed away. I suspect the folks posting on the board would far exceed the IQ cap they have on the warmistas. Anthropogenic Gullible Warming is frustrating for it’s adherents.
John A (17:39:55) :
If I’d have been in Copenhagen, I’d have been taking orders for food, drink, socks, windcheaters, and stand-in-lines for comfort breaks. AND THEY WOULD HAVE PAID FOR IT.
The Europeans’ Innovative Capitalism gene has atrophied, it appears. While I can engage in schadenfruede with the best of you, I do have a smidge of empathy for Seth. Wait. That’s just the Christmas Spirit speaking. Seth! You’re in Northern Europe, in winter. I work outside for a living, dealing with ice and/or snow frequently, and chill temps in the single digits or less. And I’m in the Texas Panhandle. I shudder (pun intended) to think what my comrades in the Northern part of the country deal with.
Just imagine how cold it would have been at Hopenchangen without AGW! These freezing masses should be thankful for the additional CO2.
It’s interesting how the AGW trolls popping into WUWT are so focused on the comments, that they miss the science that leads off the comments, or maybe they just don’t recognize real science when they see it.
I was told the other day by a Norwegian AGW believer, that it was all just statistics. He didn’t have a clue that you need measurements and real data before you can wield a statistical club. Sigh.
3×2 (15:42:40) :
Would a particular number of Seths be directly equivalent to a unit of UN Incompetence Quotient or are there other variables?
I advocate 1 UNIQ where, say, 1 mUNIQ = an incompetently arranged accreditation process, I UNIQ is a food for oil programme, 1 hUNIQ = Massacres in Darfur, and 1 kUNIQ = a Rwandan genocide.
This guy is not called Boerenstein – it’s Borat! He probably was wearing that costume – with the suspenders – that would be cold, wouldn’t it.
FerdinandAkin (15:16:32) :
Welcome to the future of U. N. controlled carbon rationing. What ever amount of carbon needed to maintain your lifestyle, only one third will be given out.
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How many life boats were on the Titanic?
Remember- the first two letters in the word unnecessary are “UN.”
It appears that Seth’s not the only elitist warmer journalist with a newfound insight into the competence of the UN.
http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2009/12/if_this_is_un_efficiency_1.html
Well, Seth, if the extreme eco-idiots have their way, a bathroom will be a casualty for the great crusade. Can’t be having a toilet, that isn’t primitive enough for Mother Earth. Taking a tinkle in a bowl of fresh water uses too much of Gaia’s water supply. Hey, they advocate forced population reduction, this is mild in comparison.
As far as the UN, they are a failure but they are made up of humans. And because they have humans, they learn and adapt, which means they get better. The UN may fail at getting its goals by climate change, but they will succeed one day. I am no prophet, but I am not naive and idealistic. A leopard can’t change its spots, a tiger can’t change its stripes, and the UN can’t change what it really is. The UN won’t be a toothless lion forever.
Um … the insustainability of socialism (and by extension communism) and mutually assured destruction prevented nuclear war, not the UN. MAD did prevent a nuclear war, but when the USSR fell it ended hatred.
Questions for TheGoodLocust. Which sites censors comments which run contrary to the opinion of the authors, this one or realclimate.org? The obvious answer is not this site, because your post was posted. If Anthony Watts does not censor his blog which is under his direct control, why would he try to censor YouTube? Try posting this message at realclimate.org and see if Gavin Schmit will allow it — “Global warming is false, here are several provable reasons why … (then go on to name several logical reasons.)” I promise you, you’ll have a better chance of seeing a flying unicorn than to see that post get through the censors. Yet Anthony Watts is the one trying to suppress information. I only have one thing to say about that, which the link below will cover nicely.
http://movie-sounds.net/film/Married-Axe-Murderer/244/
chip (15:53:32) : Ditto!
My brother also worked in refugee resettlement for the UN for 4 years in the far back blocks of in Tanzania in the early to mid 1970’s and he holds the UN in complete contempt.
And the UN has got a lot more incompetent and corrupt since then.
“I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here”.
This was based on raw data and before adjustments for surface stations changes (=advancing in the que).
After adjustments it became “I need shorts! I’m burning my ass off out here”
Research indicates that it was the hottest on record and much worse than thought.
M
All in all …. a banner day!
joshua corning (15:27:43) :
[The UN] “succeeded in stopping the US and the USSR from ending the world in a nuclear war.”
Not exactly. The UN was designed to allow the winners of the Second World war to maintain checks and balances over the activities other countries – member nations of the Security Council have the power of veto over most UN decisions.
There was a war between the US and its allies; on one side, and Russia and its satellite states on the other – the Cold War. It was that war, and the constant balancing of power between the antagonists, that prevented an all out nuclear war.
I lost some friends and colleagues in that war – it was real, it just wasn’t public.
History may tell it differently, but everybody who posts to this blog knows that there is often a great deal of difference between belief and reality.
“I don’t need food. I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
———————————–
They didn’t account for the cold and that’s a travesty.
Stephen Wilde (15:31:48) : “…In 1900 the most pressing concern in western cities was how to deal with all the horse dung…”
Crapenshaggin’ shows how little we’ve advanced since then.
Thisis how our the “leaders of the world” manage a simple queue? Imagine them managing the world.
Of course there would be a lot of queues in such a post-global warming New World so I hope they get better at it.
Mal (18:41:04) :
After adjustments it became “I need shorts! I’m burning my ass off out here”
——————————————
Is that how they hide the decline?
Where is Piers Corbyn’s blizzard when we needed it. Seven to eight hours of standing in blizzard conditions would be a real life demo of why COLD is worse than heat. Might even penetrate a journalists brains.
“I don’t need food. I need socks! I’m freezing my ass off out here.”
Was he tempted to beat the crap out the UN, really tempted?
I guess they should have believed the forecast of cooling.