I’m posting from foggy Denmark. Much like Vermont, but flatter and with thatched roofs (beautiful roofs, but how would we attach PV)! A few hundred years ago the area we are in, Tisvildeleje, was buried by sand dunes due to deforestation. These dunes buried entire villages including a church we visited! Eventually they reseeded, then reforested 60,000+ hectares of dune and then shoveled many things out. Took about 150 years to fight the dunes back but they were successful.  A lesson we need to relearn in many more parts of the world today. (They are doing a massive tree planting program west of Beijing, which is threatened by sand dunes.) Nothing can stop the sand dunes except replanting. Can’t plant fast enough really.

Meanwhile, after a horrible night’s sleep and a late start, we managed to go to Helsingor, (legendary setting of Elsingor for Hamlet) and tour the castle Kronborg. Quite impressive, considering it was first constructed in late 1500’s. Again took public transit successfully (though we did take the ‘long way’ accidently!)

And although I have been enjoying an actual vacation, I have been keeping in the loop of news and media surrounding the climate conference and have a few observations:

• there is considerable angst surrounding the proceedings. I think there is a feeling, finally, that something needs to be done.
• the EPA’s announcement that it can and will regulate greenhouse gases is a huge step forward. While we cannot solve the problem using just the hammer of the clean air act, it is a hammer that can help move the Congress forward.
• Some back room deals that are being discussed, while poor in overall equity and outcome, do seem to show the US tentatively agreeing to very significant cuts in the long term, deeper than anything that has been discussed previously.
• I think the confluence of Obama being here with the other world leaders could in fact, have a huge effect. It will be a show of huge suspense and imperiled outcome, with obstacles at every turn.

More to come from Copenhagen…

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 3:44 pm and is filed under Climate Change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.