And yet…it was claimed to be a “success”. Note to organizers: the media is laughing at you.
Snowstorm squelches climate change protest
By Judy Fahys, The Salt Lake Tribune Updated: 12/30/2009 06:36:58 PM MST
A downtown [Salt Lake City] protest of the climate change talks in Copenhagen became a victim of Wednesday’s snowstorm.
“Not many people showed up because of the blizzard conditions,” said organizer Clea Major, an international studies student at the University of Utah.
It didn’t take long for the six friends to pack up a bullhorn and posters they’d planned to use for their “scream-in,” an outlet for their frustration about the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks earlier this month to curb the pollution blamed for climate change.
Still, they chatted with a few passers-by during the commuter-hour protest near the Gateway, and explained that, blizzard aside, climate change is expected to bring chaos to the global climate, said Major.
She called Wednesday evening’s effort a success and possibly the first in a series. As for the snow, it’s not entirely new; a protest she attended last year in Washington, D.C., suffered a similar fate.
“There is always the irony element,” Major said.
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Here’s the original announcement from KCPW in Salt Lake:
Protesters Scream for Climate Change
12.30.2009 by Elizabeth Ziegler
(KCPW News) Climate change activists will stage a “scream-in” today at the Gateway Mall in downtown Salt Lake City to vent their frustrations about the Copenhagen Accord adopted by global leaders two weeks ago. University of Utah student Cléa Major says the demonstration is intended to call attention to the fact that the accord doesn’t require countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“Basically we want your average shopper to go home tonight after work and say, ‘Man, you know, I was returning my Christmas gift and there were these people screaming on the sidewalk, you know, what’s that all about?’” Major says. “We wanted to make an impression on people and we wanted to maybe put it in a location where it wasn’t necessarily expected to get people out of the post-Christmas haze to just sort of listen.”
Major sees the Copenhagen Accord as a failure, akin to the cap and trade legislation, The American Clean Energy and Security Act, that activists had hoped would set the tone in Copenhagen. The bill has stalled in the Senate after garnering a narrow margin of support in the House of Representatives this summer. All three of Utah’s Congressmen voted against it.
Major says the scream-in will be cathartic for those participating, who see the Copenhagen Accord as a missed opportunity to reverse climate change.
“We just all felt so helpless, we felt betrayed by this,” Major says. “We felt helpless and we felt furious because it was like we had just been looking to this to be the big thing that could turn it around or at least be a major jumping off point. And it just kind of stalled and failed and now there’s kind of this feeling of we don’t really know where to go next.”
The scream-in takes place at 5:30 p.m. on the northwest corner of 400 West and 200 South at the Gateway Mall.
Pachauri stirs mayhap?
O/T, but check out this at http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/12/rather-preoccupied.html The comments pages from 18 onwards reveal how entrenched the CO2 scam has become, but you all knew that.
Steve in SC (13:13:36) :
Perhaps they could have gotten a bigger crowd if they had appeared naked.
A good bout of frostbite would probably be therapeutic.
A dual-purpose protest, for both Greenpeace and PETA?
“I’d rather be naked than wear fur, and it’s too warm out here! Can’t you tell?”
“I’d rather freeze than warm myself with fossil fuels! And you shouldn’t have pets! They should roam free outdoors, where Nature will take care of them, just as she takes care of us!”
Straight to YouTube and a million hits…
We speak of the Gore effect. Medically, “algor” is “the sensation of cold or a chill, particularly in the first stage of a fever”. Maybe Gore was right – the earth is in the first stage of a fever and experiencing the chills is a symptom.
Roger Knights (14:32:02) :
A year or two ago participation would have been (much?) higher.
The AGW meme peaked in popularity in 2007/early 2008. REF: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/environment_energy/energy_update
Politicians and the MSM, much like teen-aged girls (Clea?) in the school yard, are driven by the quest for popularity to survive; and contrary to their own perceptions of leading public opinion are lagging indicators of popular belief as theey jump from one band wagon to the next.
As the destructive AGW meme continues it’s slow march into the oblivion of history the politicians, MSM and the rent-seeking activists will need to find other “popular” causes to champion.
Of course, a fringe group of die hard true believers will go to their graves certain in the belief that man made emissions of CO2 will cause global thermageddon.
Thumbnail (14:44:42) :
I would like people of the Green Environmental persuasion to tune in to an Australian radio station via the web.
http://www.2sm.com.au/listen.html
This is about the plight of Australian farmers, who have had their property rights stolen from them by both levels of Government.
Peter is on a hunger strike.
Farmer after farmer is rining in to the station to tell their story.
This is huge.
Whilst we all want to protect the environment, shouldn’t we also ensure our farmers don’t suffer?
I agree that Peter’s plight is a clear case of government thuggary. However if you were hoping to enlist “people of the Green Environmental persuasion” you seem to be on the wrong blog.
What you seem to have missed is that the green movement is directly aligned with the Rudd Government actions to smash farmers such as Peter in the name of satisfying the Kyoto protocol. Please read Patrick Moore (Greenpeace Founder) on the usurpation of the environmental movement by people more interested in power than the environment. REF: http://www.greenspirit.com/key_issues.cfm?msid=34
So you are unlikely to find the response that you are naively seeking from “people of the Green Environmental persuasion“.
It is those who respect the rule of law, private property, free enterprise and minimal government interferance in peoples livelihoods who are most likely to take a stand for Peter.
Further info on Peter’s plight is at REF: http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/wholesale-theft-in-the-name-of-carbon/
Let’s wait and see in a year what happens. I hope the cooling reverses and we get some warming or you guys in the Northern Hemisphere might have a much bigger problem than even the worst global warming prediction by the IPCC. I’m not joking – this is serious.
I wish a very happy new year to all, skeptics and warmists alike. May the climate get warmer so that farmers can start planting vineyards in Siberia and banana plantations in North Dakota. May the Great White North become the Great Green North.
Don’t be so hard on the students, it’s what students do.
Happy new year to you all, whether warmist or realist.
Thank you to Anthony and the Mods, for all your hard work in 2009. Please keep up he good work in 2010.
I really enjoy visiting your site.
All the best.
Bernie.
Its near midnight 31 Dec here in the UK and I’d like to send greetings and best wishes to Anthony’s team and sincere thanks especially for stirling efforts in the last 6 or so frantic weeks. Well Done.
REPLY: Thanks much, avoid the decline. – Anthony
Stay inside during extreme global warming events. Frostbite is nasty.
This would make a great bumper sticker. Right now where I live in Washington state it’s snowing and 27 degrees.
Happy New Year!
Anyone given a thought to how much CO2 is produced from the fireworks worldwide? Not only CO2 released from fire crackers and rockets but by people transport etc etc. How many greenie groups are protesting at this? A good example of ‘its okay cos we like doing it and anyway it wouldn’t look good if we told the world to stop’.
A good example of green hipocrital subjective targetting if you ask me.
Big city lefties think food comes from stores. Where do the stores get the food? It’s delivered by big trucks. Well where do the trucks get it? They don’t have a clue.
They’re not taught where food comes from, they don’t take field trips to farms and dairies. Many of them apparently aren’t taught the proper nutrition that an omnivorous animal (such as a human) needs.
What they have been learning is that those silly farms don’t need water, that farmers “torture” and “murder” animals, that humans can survive perfectly fine on a diet of only plants. They don’t appear to understand that fermenting massive amounts of corn and other grains into alcohol for “biofuel” is raising the price *they* (and everyone else) pay for food. It’s no wonder Jay Leno has no problem finding clueless people for his “Jaywalking” bit on his TV show.
Pushing that asteroid far away is stupid. What a waste of resources! A better plan would be to guide it into orbit around Earth or Mars. In Martian orbit it’d make an excellent observation platform and staging base. In Earth orbit it’d be a source of raw materials for construction, or just dig into it as-is for a huge space station.
Consider it practice for nabbing some passing comets to skip into Mars’ atmosphere to plump it up and make it warm enough to melt the water and gasses frozen in its soil. Collecting enough rocks to mash together into a new moon big enough to tidally stress Mars the way our moon does Earth would also help things along. Likewise for Venus to help strip away its excess atmosphere, though speeding up its very slow rotation is the biggest obstacle in terraforming Venus.
Best wishes to Anthony and the moderating team. I suspect there are some long suffering wives and partners that deserve our thanks also.
Tonyb
Martin Weiss (10:33:13) :
Five inches of powdery snow in Salt Lake City yesterday. Not that cold (28F was max) and not very windy. People should have enjoyed the protest.
I agree- I’d be heading up to the Mountains with my Boards waxed-heck, I’ll do that this weekend in NE Oregon….
I wonder if it really was a success, it sounded something like this??…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_JPcBwYGmo&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
Happy New Year from snowy, icy Edinburgh… and it’s been that way for a while, which is unusual in recent times.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=YGdZAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA491&dq=edinburgh+weather&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&as_brr=1&cd=3#v=onepage&q=edinburgh%20weather&f=false
Fascinating stuff. Lots of weather records in there, including the year without a Summer….
What a bunch of idiots…protesting global warming in winter….why not wait till a hot day in August.
Typically when I have crazies yelling at me this time of the year about how the end times are coming and we are all going to die, I’m usually in Times Square and the crazy typically supports himself with a tin cup or spray bottel and squeege.
Note to Ms. Major: There is plenty of stree corners in New York where you can scream about the comming apocalypse and earn a living (sort of) and you won’t have to waste money at a University either.
Now what will be interesting is what the Gore Effect is going to bring to Mexico City next year. A major Earthquake perhaps?
Kenny Adams (17:48:36) :
What a bunch of idiots…protesting global warming in winter….why not wait till a hot day in August.
That would mean they were rational, which if they were rational they would not believe in AGW… These are kids that have been taught that the world is going to end if they don’t do something. So they did something.
Kenny Adams (17:48:36) :
What a bunch of idiots…protesting global warming in winter….why not wait till a hot day in August.
Have you not noticed how we must urgently act NOW, to limit something that shall still go on for centuries regardless?
Besides, depending where you are, hot days in August may be in short supply in 2010. Here in central Pennsylvania, I wonder if we even got just one in 2009.
“Lank (16:28:04) :
Happy New Year!
Anyone given a thought to how much CO2 is produced from the fireworks worldwide?”
You find a good analysis, i think at treehugger. Really. Go over there, they’re debating green ways to celebrate new year.
DirkH (18:41:14) :
You find a good analysis, i think at treehugger. Really. Go over there, they’re debating green ways to celebrate new year.
Fireworks with chromium? Or was that copper?
Have a Great New Year, Anthony, and the Mods.
You’ve “Made a Difference,” This Year.
Great Job. Thanks.
Those who are lambasting arts/sociology/international affairs degrees are making unwarranted extrapolations. For an example of penetrating insight on the consequences of Copenhagen from a professor of international affairs see
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2009/s2783656.htm
This level of analysis does not happen merely by wistful thinking.
The problem is not hard science versus sloppy arts. The problem is the general dumbing-down in the universities of the West. Yes, it began with arts/humanities, but from what I can see most if not all disciplines in Western universities have now been negatively affected to some degree – even engineering.
I started my professional life as a junior classics academic, then retrained in computer science, and now write data analysis software for a living, so I speak with some understanding of the perspectives of both sides.
“kadaka (18:57:04) :
Fireworks with chromium? Or was that copper?”
What do i know… didn’t stay there for long. Maybe throwing carrots in the air.