Warming Wednesdays: listen to the young people

At the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Durban, Anjali Appadurai, a student at the College of the Atlantic in Maine, spoke for youth delegates from non-governmental organizations (that's non-profits in U.S. parlance.)

You've been negotiating all my life …

The science tells us we have five years maximum -- but you are saying, give us ten … in the long run, these will be seen as the defining moments of an era in which narrow self interest prevailed over science, reason and common compassion ...

It always seems impossible until it's done. So, distinguished delegates and governments around the world, governments of the developed world: Deep cuts now. Get it done.

It's easy for those of us who are older. We can hope the worse results of global warming won't be something we'll see. We can hope that the world as we've known it -- a world with plenty of water that falls in season, with enough food, with unimaginable material wealth and natural beauty -- will last out our life times.

And if we don't make the powers-that-be act NOW, our descendants will curse us.