The US and climate change- mod 9

cope diagram

This system diagram begins with climate change which is a growing environmental issue. The leaders of many of the nations around the world are aware of this and are trying to collectively take action to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. They do this by meeting at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit and creating the Copenhagen Accord. The goal of this accord was to create ways for each country to cut greenhouse gas emission. It also planned to give aid to the poor countries that were affected by this. Not all the countries agreed on this accord and the U.S. wanted it to gain support because it serves their interests. The U.S. then provided massive amounts of financial aid to affected countries that they also threatened and spied on to get them to back the accord. This is what WikiLeaks discovered and exposed on the internet. These actions lead to mistrust from many nations even though they would continue supporting the Copenhagen Accord.  With this support from the other nations they 140 countries aligned with the accord allowing action to be taken on it. What the U.S. did here was by no means the right thing to do, but the result is that there will be significantly less greenhouse gas emission and action will be taken on the issue of climate change. Although the spying and threatening is not good, I think the ends justified the means in this case and now the world can make an effort to act on climate change.

I think climate change needs to be getting more attention from world leaders, so I like how they are meeting to discuss the matter. I also believe that countries need to start taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and I would agree with the Copenhagen Accord. Climate change has been recognized by many as the most important problem in the world today, but it has taken a while to see any action taken. The U.S. wanted to prompt other countries to take action because it is a collective action problem that can’t be resolved by any one country. They did do some spying and threatening to other nations that has led to mistrust, but it was for a good purpose. Since climate change is one of the biggest problems in the world today, I think the end result justifies the means taken to get there. The Copenhagen Accord is a huge step toward solving this problem and ending mitigation from countries and I believe this justifies the spying and threatening they did to get there. As for the cables being made public, this I do not agree with. It is sometimes important to be aware of the actions of our nation, but there is a lot the people don’t know and it is usually for the right reasons. The release of these cables took a lot of attention away from climate change which is hurtful in solving the problem. If this was kept secret, I think countries would be more focused at the real problem of climate change.

2 thoughts on “The US and climate change- mod 9

  1. Hey Bryan, I’m Ian read my post here: https://wp.me/p3RCAy-egN. We have similar outlooks on the way the United States took action to gain further interest in the Copenhagen Accord. I agree that was for a good cause. I also agree that the cables should not have been released. I did not think of it from your point of taking away attention from the climate change. We also both agree that the ends justify the means, and related our posts back to module three.

  2. Hey Bryan I think you did a good job with your diagram. I agree that it’s a good thing that world leaders are meeting to help solve climate change. I also agree that the ends justify the means because even though the US went about it the wrong way, it will eventually benefit everyone. Climate change is a big enough problem that everything and anything must be done to stop it.

    Here’s a link to my post: http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/04/08/climate-change-michael-celoni/

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