UN Summit Stuff

On September 22, 2009 a United Nations conference was held in New York.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090923/ap_on_re_us/un_un_general_assembly.

During this Summit UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked world leaders to address several issues imperative to the well being of the planet and it's people: the increasing threat of a drastic climate change, the world-wide cleansing of nuclear weapons, and the increase of poverty caused by the global financial crisis.

The next day 100 heads of state convened in the largest-ever summit on global warming and discussed how to combat our planet's climate change. This reminded me of something that occurred about a year ago. A gathering of world leaders was held in South Africa to address the issue of global warming. Each nation leader was asked to sign an agreement that they would reduce their countries emission of green-house gases by two percent. President Bush, along with a small number of others, did not agree to sign. He said it would be too harmful to our economy. The conference administrator, hiding his frustration, said that the issue would be brought up again in a few months (when the United States had a new president).

When I read that the largest-ever summit on global warming was held in the Obama run United States this week, afew thoughts came to my mind. Will the United State's change of president have a significant impact on the fight against global warming? Is it up to the U.S. to set the example of change? Is it naive to think it can be done without significantly affecting our economy? Does our portayal of fromer President Bush as a stubborn fool give us false certainty that we can commit to propositions like the kind Bush refused in South Africa? POST YOUR COMMENTS!