I am sure you have all read some news version of what happened today.

We left the hotel breakfast early to get to what we thought was the best spot to view the proceedings and Obama's speech inside the thoroughly inaccessible Bella Center, full of the heads of 193 countries.  We chose the Climate Center, a vast complex like an over-sized YMCA with vast conference spaces, a hotel, and a gym.  The lap pool was truly a lap pool: a very large race track shape oval, probably 300 by 200 feet, so you swam your laps around, not back and forth.  Pretty impressive.  The Climate Center is also the main gathering place for the young impassioned - a haven of the youthful earnest, hopeful, and organizing, all to prompt the resolution of climate change and to make the future planet sustainable (for my grandchildren).  Once again I was back in the 60's protesting against the Vietnam war and for civil rights.  It felt like old home week, except now I was the sturdy Dad and not the exuberant Kid.

In a room bigger than a football field, an old warehouse, we sat comfortably on chairs lined up in front of two huge television screens playing two different programs and separated by a small stage on which youth were readying for the one o'clock performance to award the Fossil of The Year.  You will remember this award is deserved by the country with the most odious environmental policy, and this was the uber-winner, the year's best.  Canada won - hands down.  Canada has policies and an economy which will substantially and knowingly increase green house gas emissions, mostly from its intention to develop the vast tar sands oil fields and also to continue its slash and burn forestry practice.  

We had a very expert staff of two within the Bella Center, who were in constant Twitter communication with us waiting for the event to begin.  Obama was said to have flown in the night before, would make his speech, and then go back home in the afternoon.  There was an hour-long delay, and we guessed right that Obama and Wen Jiabao, the Chinese Prime Minister, were doing last minute policy fisticuffs in a back room with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon refereeing.  Meanwhile the dignitaries rested seated in the vast hall, at desks in a long arc embracing the stage front where the moderators sat next to a podium.  The usual geometry of these meetings.  Finally, the Danish Prime Minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen appeared and gave a very cogent and succinct rendition of the justification for the entire three decades of international climate negotiations.  Ban Ki-moon said a few words and Wen came to the podium.  He ran through what the Chinese had already said they would do and had done, including a planned 40-45% per GDP reduction in green house gases since 2005 levels, vast reforestation, and many forms of alternative energy.  He reminded us that China is an undeveloped country in terms of GDP per population., thereby deserving of special consideration compared to the predominantly western countries with much higher incomes per capita.  All very good and well beyond what other nation have offered, including the US.  Then he expressed a new willingness to allow monitoring, reporting, and validation ("MRV" - damn pesky acronyms) of China's environmental policies, which has been of severe concern.  China doesn't seem to want the rest of the world, the climate inspectors, intruding.  Then Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the president of Brazil came to speak.   "Lula" - I love the lovely familiar names Hispanic heroes are given.  He is rather charming, not so sophisticated, a labor organizer, intelligent.  Lula reviewed Brazil's intentions for extensive reduction of deforestation and then offered an addition: they would participate in some form of compensation to assist other countries in resolving their environmental degradation.  Good news.  

Both Wen and Lula emerged from the vast rows of high officials seated in the hall.  But then Obama came in, obscurely, from stage left.  I noticed that the people around me had grown to a crowd, a grouping in expectation of a meaningful, if not extraordinary, moment.  He stepped to the podium, stiff, and apparently unhappy.  His first themes were surprisingly jingoistic: what is "best for America" comes first, then "what is best for the world".  He offered what was already known: 17% reduction in green house gases by 2020 increasing by 2050.  Support of a $100 billion financing for developing countries and the $10 billion "quick start".  He said it is time to "act", no longer to "talk".  His message was tough, terse, and uncharacteristically not brilliant.  He spoke briefly and then left, stage left.  There was a faint but very definite "booing" amongst the folks assembled around me, and I felt the same.  

If you will allow me my personal assumptions and aspirations, this is how I see that moment, which we all at the NRDC hoped might be inspirational but was not at all.  I listened to my President and heard that he was offering the support of his country, my country, in this extraordinarily complex, momentous and dire collaboration of nations on Planet Earth.  He has been earnest, well meaning, princely.  But he is a paper tiger.  His country is not with him.  The forces of delusion, greed, sociopathy have robbed him of the support he needs to do us all good.  He is emasculated.  Way to go, Satan.  One for you.  You are killing our lovely nation.  

Then we went to dinner. 

 We had a pleasant time.  We are friends, after all.  At one point the tweets came in that an agreement had emerged.  Obama had not left town after all, but had stayed on to try to produce some sort of resolution.  Nothing written, but at least a conversation about what would be good.  Good.