The Fatal Shore

*

I pushed my glass to the edge of the bar gutter and said to the bartender, "Gimme a Guinness and get yourself one too."
I decided it was time to slow down and one way was to drink Guinness, since it took so long to fill a glass out of the tap. When the bartender finally brought it to me I saw that he had etched a harp in the foam with the tap nozzle. An angel's harp. I hoisted the glass before drinking from it.
"God bless the dead," I said.
"God bless the dead," the bartender said.
I drank heavily from the glass and the dark ale was like mortar I was sending down to hold the bricks together inside. All at once I felt like crying. But then my phone rang. I grabbed it without looking at the screen and said hello. The alcohol had bent my voice into an unrecognizable shape.
Michael Connelly
The Lincoln Lawyer.

Well, 19 years ago, when the world was young and laptops did not exist, when we didn't have mobiles and Google meant nothing, he had been an adult male with a pregnant woman in tow; and the world had seemed a fresh, very different place. The young blond had ballooned. Astonishing things had happened. His life had been transformed. Sincere drops came sweating from his brow, and they were together, the young, handsome couple. His articles were appearing regularly on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald and he was known not just as a character, but something of a success. Everything swirled and the world seemed full of portent.

He had moved from his magnificent apartment in Potts Point, with views stretching across Woolloomoolloo; and had surrendered all the neurotic past, bouncing in and out of meetings; falling desperately into the arms of others; maintaining a quiet dignity. He was so afraid; and yet there was nothing to be afraid of. A child was on the way and life was being transformed utterly. He was proud and confused and desperate; could feel his old life slipping rapidly away; and everything was born anew; everything was full of hope. He had moved into her shared apartment overlooking Bondi Beach; and would come home from work to find his increasingly large girlfriend happily chatting to the neighbours, equally excited.

Because the whole world lay in front of us. Because neither of them had had children before. Because his stories were getting on the front page and all was right with the world. Because young love knew no obstacles; of course everything would work out, this was noble destiny; this was their life. And 19 years later, why 19? It wasn't a magical number. It made no sense. But 19 it was. After 19 years they were back living in Bondi, if only briefly. Like previously; they were lives in transit, from one to the other. And that once gorgeous girlfriend he had once been so proud to be seen with stood outside the apartment on Christmas Day, crying; there were always tears these days.

Crying although over God knows what; and he brought her in and was kind; while the kids rolled their eyes and shrugged sadly at the state of their mother. For they had seen everything; and by the end of the day would be subdued, almost in shock. I'm on two different kinds of antibiotics she declared; scratching at the ulcers on her legs; bursting into tears and laughing within seconds. So much had changed. My blood's going septic, she declared, and he believed it, her legs puffy and the sores appalling.

What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? He could hear the anguish still. And he would never forget the day she rang him up; just before he had moved down to Bondi Beach, to that apartment with spectacular views down the country's most famous beach, and proudly, a little nervously, unsure of the reaction, declared she was leaving meetings and was having a drink to celebrate. It seemed like a good idea at the time. We were frontiers people, always pushing the boundaries, and this was an easy boundary to push. Now the kids called her the weirdo; with nothing but disgust and contempt; and sadness.

So much water had passed under the bridge; so much of their lives had disappeared. That child she had been swollen with; the smell of white nighties, of pregnancy and expectation; was now a 19-year-old university student; with a low opinion of the chaos from which he had been borne. The daughter who followed so rapidly was now a 17-year-old girl who could hardly be a more typical 17-year-old girl. Dad, dad, she said excitedly, you know Bondi Rescue? Yes. You know the hot one? No. The hot one! Dad you don't know anything. The hot one! The blond one! I met him. And he stood in the wreckage of the past, and was horrified by what he saw. The shock of her presence. The shock of the physical decay. Nothing would be the same again. The cycle, the universe, had brought us back here; to show us what?

The tourists splashed happily in the vivid heat. Other lives were beginning, others were ending. The waves broke against the shore.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.canada.com/business/Copenhagen+blame+game+helpful+climate+chief/2375889/story.html

LONDON — Countries should stop blaming each other for the weak outcome of the Copenhagen climate talks and sit down together to move the process forward, the UN's top climate change official said on Wednesday.

It is still possible to reach a legally binding global treaty, and bickering among countries like China and Britain is unproductive, Yvo de Boer, the head of the UN's climate change secretariat, told Reuters.

Britain accused a handful of states including China on Monday of hijacking efforts to agree deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. China replied that the allegations were an attempt to sow discord among emerging countries.

"These countries have to sit down together next year, so blaming each other for what happened will not help," de Boer said.

The Copenhagen summit ended with a non-binding accord between the U.S., China and other emerging powers that sets a target of limiting global warming to a maximum 2 degrees Celsius and offers funding to help poor nations adapt to climate change, but the details are scant.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/opinion/24iht-edloy.html

The drama was of high order. In the decidedly unglamorous side-rooms of Copenhagen’s Bella Center, leaders of the most powerful countries of the world faced off, trying to rewrite the rules for how the world confronts the risk of catastrophic climate change. Thousands in the center and untold numbers around the world awaited the result.

The outcome — a three-page political declaration known as the “Copenhagen Accord” — has been roundly attacked. “The worst development in climate change negotiating history,” said the spokesman for the G-77 block of about 130 developing nations. Greenpeace, which is hardly ever satisfied with anything, declared it “a crime scene with the guilty leaving for the airport.” The London Independent’s front page proclaimed it “a historic failure that will live in infamy.”

These descriptions are ridiculous. The Copenhagen Accord is a serious step forward, if a severely limited one. It starts by establishing a concrete and demanding goal: keeping the rise in global temperature to two degrees Centigrade. Up to now we have been working with a slippery aim of avoiding dangerous harm to the atmosphere. The new objective lets people and governments do the math, and see if their efforts are adding up.

Moreover, for the first time in 17 years of negotiations all the major emitters of greenhouse gases have acknowledged that they have specific individual responsibilities to reduce their emissions.

http://www.businessinsider.com/carbon-offset-futures-tank-after-copenhagen-fiasco-2009-12

It's a pretty tiny market still, but there is actually trading in carbon permits. In some countries, where they have emissions limits, they actually have value. And if there ever is a cap & trade scheme put into place in more places, what's worthless now may actulaly end up being valuable.

Well, here's how you know the Copenhagen summit was a total joke. The cost of emitting carbon just plunged 8.7%.

Bloomberg: European Union carbon permits fell the most since February on the European Climate Exchange. The U.S., China, India and other nations attending the two-week Copenhagen summit that ended at the weekend agreed to voluntary, rather than binding, targets to reduce emissions. The accord isn’t enough to boost demand for permits, said Trevor Sikorski, an emissions analyst at Barclays Capital in London.

Shellharbour, NSW, Australia.