Year 3, Month 12, Day 16: Dreamers.

USA Today runs an AP article on the world’s hopes that America will DO SOMETHING instead of making it impossible for everyone else to DO ANYTHING:

Even as international climate talks ended this weekend with no new commitments on carbon emissions or climate aid from the United States, some were relieved America didn’t make a weak deal even weaker.

Other countries are now watching to see if the Obama administration will back up post-election comments about climate change with renewed efforts to cut emissions at home and pave the way for more ambitious targets as work proceeds to adopt a new global climate pact in 2015.

The two-week talks in Doha ended with an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, which was to expire this year, but which now will only cover 15% of global emissions since several developed countries, including Japan and Canada, have opted out. The U.S. never ratified the accord.

European Union Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said Sunday that the U.S. negotiators were “careful not to block” the negotiations, adding that it’s “still difficult to know whether they will actually invest political capital in committing to a new international deal.”

In an emailed comment to the Associated Press, Hedegaard said she hopes Obama “will present not only an enhanced domestic climate policy but also an enhanced U.S. engagement and willingness to commit more in an international climate context.”

Yup. Good luck with that. Sent December 10:

Every president leaves a record of promises kept and broken, of hopes fulfilled or dashed, of ideologies upheld or disproven, and Barack Obama is no exception. The coming years will allow him to shape the future of our country — and our planet — in ways that earlier chief executives could not even imagine. The choices he makes on the issue of global climate change will not only shape his own legacy, but determine whether the slow evolution of our American republic can continue towards an ever more perfect union.

Failure to address the climate crisis condemns future generations to life on a deeply hostile Earth in which simple survival will be a daily struggle — a bleak existence in which our descendants won’t have any time to recall the greatness of past Presidents. It’s not just President Obama’s legacy that’s on the line, but the future of our civilization.

Warren Senders