Most meetings kind of suck. They suck less when there are cookies. I prefer big chocolate-chip cookies, the chips like tasty depth charges, washed down with a nice Cabernet Sauvignon.
However, cookies and wine aside, if you have to attend yet another meeting featuring the endless droning of your beloved colleagues or townsfolk, it's fun to at least pretend to get something done. For instance, why not make a widely ambitious, voluntary pledge, even if said pledge is lacking in concrete prospects. Good intentions count, right? People can be inspired to change their ways. And visionary pledging sure beats lounging in lassitude as everyone agrees to kick the crucial decisions, can-like, down the road.
Such idealistic meetings, surely, produced the recent pledge by the European Union to go climate neutral by 2050. Bam, all of it, energy, transportation, farm animals -- all greenhouse emissions to yield no net impact on the climate. Twenty-six countries are on board, while Poland pouts in the corner (We want to burn coal! We want more money if we can't!) and the U.K. goes Brexit, stage right. That's about 550 million people, not counting the Brits. Impressively, the E.U. allows for little procrastination, requiring itself to get halfway there by 2030. Well, "requiring" may be a little strong, since there's no penalty for failure in this agreement. Let's say strongly suggesting...at any rate, you'll be shunned and served weak tea at the biannual shindig in Brussels if you don't at least try.
However, cookies and wine aside, if you have to attend yet another meeting featuring the endless droning of your beloved colleagues or townsfolk, it's fun to at least pretend to get something done. For instance, why not make a widely ambitious, voluntary pledge, even if said pledge is lacking in concrete prospects. Good intentions count, right? People can be inspired to change their ways. And visionary pledging sure beats lounging in lassitude as everyone agrees to kick the crucial decisions, can-like, down the road.
Such idealistic meetings, surely, produced the recent pledge by the European Union to go climate neutral by 2050. Bam, all of it, energy, transportation, farm animals -- all greenhouse emissions to yield no net impact on the climate. Twenty-six countries are on board, while Poland pouts in the corner (We want to burn coal! We want more money if we can't!) and the U.K. goes Brexit, stage right. That's about 550 million people, not counting the Brits. Impressively, the E.U. allows for little procrastination, requiring itself to get halfway there by 2030. Well, "requiring" may be a little strong, since there's no penalty for failure in this agreement. Let's say strongly suggesting...at any rate, you'll be shunned and served weak tea at the biannual shindig in Brussels if you don't at least try.
Back to meetings that truly suck -- such as the recent United Nations conference on climate change that concluded a few days ago in Madrid. Well, "concluded" may be a little strong, since nothing apparently happened. Let's say it fizzled or ground to a halt in a spasm of self-recrimination and selfishness as youth protesters hollered bloody murder outside the halls. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, like a dad surveying junior's abysmal report card, tweeted that he was "disappointed." Then, silently, he returned to his newspaper. And now, drum-roll, for the award ceremonies. Gold, silver, bronze and platinum medals for obstructing progress at even making a wildly ambitious, voluntary pledge: USA, Brazil, China and India! These countries just happen to be the world's major greenhouse gas emitters.
But rest assured, said the representatives of the world's leaders,* we're reconvening next year. That meeting in Glasgow, Scotland will be COP-26, for the 26th annual meeting of the Conference of Parties as directed by the Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee for a Framework Convention on Climate Change (INCFCCC). Let's hope that COP-26, unlike COP-25, will not be another COP-out.
Bad puns for bad meetings. As for the cookies at COP-25, they were vegan so...yeah.
*"Leaders" may be a little strong. Let's say flawed human beings like you and me who have risen beyond their level of expertise, or maybe timid toadies of the status quo, or rapacious exploiters of...
But rest assured, said the representatives of the world's leaders,* we're reconvening next year. That meeting in Glasgow, Scotland will be COP-26, for the 26th annual meeting of the Conference of Parties as directed by the Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee for a Framework Convention on Climate Change (INCFCCC). Let's hope that COP-26, unlike COP-25, will not be another COP-out.
Bad puns for bad meetings. As for the cookies at COP-25, they were vegan so...yeah.
*"Leaders" may be a little strong. Let's say flawed human beings like you and me who have risen beyond their level of expertise, or maybe timid toadies of the status quo, or rapacious exploiters of...
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