My systems diagram shows the connection between the leak of the cables to climate change. It starts off with how humans have started releasing more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere as time has progressed. This is bad for the environment as it can cause the climate to rise. With this serious problem on the rise the world came together and had the United Nations climate change convention. At this convention, no solid plan was developed to solve global warming, so the US created the Copenhagen Accord, which was a plan developed to mitigate climate. The accord needed to gain support from many countries in order for it to pass. To gain support, The US started using bribery, threats, and violence in order to convince other countries to sign up to support the accord. The communications of these threats and bribes were released to the public when the cables were released. When these cables were released the public and other powerful countries, who were against the accord, were upset with how the US was negotiating. Even after the cables were leaked, countries were still demanding high amounts of money in order to support the accord. With the United States needing support, they paid the other countries and gave in to their demands. This led to 116 countries joining the accord with 26 more saying that have intentions to. With all of these countries supporting the accord, it puts into place a plan to help mitigate climate change. It is not the best solution, but it is something that will help for now until the United Nations can come together again and form a better, strong plan of action against greenhouse gasses and global warming.

I do not agree that the State Department cables should have been made public. The way our country talks to other countries should be kept private. The public does not know about government affairs and how to interact with other countries. Also, by only leaking a portion of the cables, the whole conversation between some of the countries was not seen. By only seeing parts of the conversation the wrong message can be received. Before the United States created the accord, the United Nations was in the middle of a collective action problem. If all of the countries worked on reducing their greenhouse gasses emissions, it would help the entire planet, however it is easier for individual countries to not change anything they are doing. If they all came together with one plan, the Earth would benefit, and that’s what the US was trying to accomplish with the accord. Also, I believe this is a matter that can be related to something we learned earlier in the year, which talks about ethics. This is an example of how the ends can justify the means. The United States wants a system in place to help mitigate climate change and protect the Earth. To accomplish this, they took some questionable measures to get the support they need, but in the end they gained enough support to start doing something about the climate changes. The means of bribing and using threats justify the end of having a system to place to help fight/reduce global warming.