The Road to Paris Takes an Unforeseen Detour

History will surprise you. I decided to begin this blog as a year-long project to follow and report on the preparations for the Paris Climate Change conference in December of 2015. This seemed worth doing because, frankly, I don't think our species will survive much longer unless greenhouse gas emissions are greatly reduced, and increasing atmospheric temperatures checked--and soon! No one knows if it may be too late already, but it seems certain to me that unless serious commitments emerge from Paris this year it will most certainly be too late by the time another international movement is built on this ashes of this one. So really, people, listen up--this is The Big One.

Why me? I bring no special knowledge to the problem, just a newspaper reader's awareness of how the problem has evolved. I haven't been a Climate activist (though I did attend last fall's march in New York), and I sift the scientific data as best I can. I do bring a strong interest in the politics of France, Europe, and the European Union to the table. So I thought a useful role might be to gather information here about the EU countries as they prepare in their various ways to put national and EU-wide proposals on the table in Paris. Partly because Europe, with its historically strong Green parties and a certain historical wisdom grounded in tragedy, has been in the forefront of the global awareness on this issue, partly because with its 28 members, each somewhat autonomous, it brings a plurality of approaches, my hope is that Europe will offer a fruitful set of examples for the rest of us.

Such was and is my plan for this blog. And now for the surprise: since Wednesday, 4 days ago, Paris has been the scene of several brutal terrorist attacks, the site of massive demonstrations in support of national solidarity, free speech, or simply "humanity," but also the epicenter of a renewed debate on a whole set of essential questions not immediately related to the Climate discussion: immigration from less to more developed countries, relations between the Muslim world and the West, relations among diverse populations, including Muslims and recent immigrants, in societies where they represent a growing minority, and so forth. It feels odd to write about "The Road to Paris" without mentioning the extraordinary circumstance Paris finds itself in as I write. Therefore I will post a separate set of thoughts on the current situation in France, in Paris, as best I can follow it from Boston. Then I hope to resume my original intention, but the questions related to Islam in the West may continue to steal my attention. We'll see.