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By Mark Hertsgaard, The Nation
Posted on December 15, 2011, Printed on December 21, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153459/deniers-in-chief%3A_how_the_most_powerful_leaders_in_the_world_just_guaranteed_us_a_climate_disaster
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A different and more dangerous breed of climate denier commanded the stage at the recently concluded international negotiations in Durban, South Africa. These were not the usual cranks blathering fossil-fuel-industry talking points about how the science is all rubbish aimed at fostering a liberty-crushing world government. No, this breed is even more frightening, precisely because its members are not wacko outsiders. Rather, they are Serious People who actually run governments, or at least negotiate on behalf of those who do. They are lawyers, diplomats and government ministers, and they would be very surprised to hear themselves described as climate deniers.
After all, men such as Todd Stern and Jonathan Pershing, the top two US negotiators in Durban, and Xie Zhenhua, who headed China's delegation, understand the basics of climate science well enough. They know that burning fossil fuels, leveling forests and other types of human activity are dangerously overheating the planet. They know that far-reaching action must be taken if their countries and humanity as a whole are to escape encroaching disaster. They even know--for they explicitly endorsed it at the last round of major climate negotiations in Copenhagen two years ago--that 2 degrees Celsius is the absolute maximum temperature rise that can be allowed if there is to be any chance of avoiding catastrophic and potentially irreversible climate change.
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