Open Thread

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: Walter Russell Mead proclaims the "death of global warming" (the movement).

The global warming campaigners got into this mess because they had a deeply flawed political strategy.  They were never able to develop a pragmatic approach that could reach its goals in the context of the existing international system.  The global warming movement proposed a complex set of international agreements involving vast transfers of funds, intrusive regulations in national economies, and substantial changes to the domestic political economies of most countries on the planet.  As it happened, the movement never got to the first step — it never got the world’s countries to agree to the necessary set of treaties, transfers and policies that would constitute, at least on paper, a program for achieving its key goals...

For better or worse, the global political system isn’t capable of producing the kind of result the global warming activists want.  It’s like asking a jellyfish to climb a flight of stairs; you can poke and prod all you want, you can cajole and you can threaten.  But you are asking for something that you just can’t get — and at the end of the day, you won’t get it.

Is he calling in the mortician a bit early, or are we actually hearing death rattles?