Matters Of Policy & Politics: Did Europe Take The Red Pill?

Inter Press Service, 2012-06-07. 

RIO+20: Earth Summit Negotiated the Size of the Zero By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 7 2012 (IPS) - Amidst much political fanfare, the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro concluded with the adoption of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and the landmark Agenda 21 blueprint for a sustainable future in the 21st century.   Still, there was widespread disappointment over the final outcome of that conference – primarily because there were no firm funding commitments by the world’s rich nations. (...) 

The concept of trade-offs has become unfashionable. Politicians around the world like to pretend that their choices will bring us nothing but superlative benefits.

Nowhere is this whitewashing more pervasive or accepted than in climate change. There is a prevalent, comforting notion that we can have our cake and eat it too: that cutting carbon need not involve financial sacrifice.

Can You Really Make Clouds Whiter and More Reflective?

Scientists are getting there, and it might be the one of the best ways to fight climate change. By Bjørn Lomborg Posted Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Of all of the issues in the Copenhagen Consensus 2012 project, climate change is perhaps the most talked-about and charged. Although efforts to strike an international climate deal have come to naught, more newspaper space and celebrity attention has been devoted to this issue in the past decade than any other.