Youtube do Dia: Fossil of the Day

Submitted by Rick Eyre on December 12 2009, 1:15 pm

For twelve days, December 7 to 18, Copenhagen is the Naivete Capital of the Universe. Some of the street activities during COP15 are either naive, puerile, or just plain counter-productive. When Tuvalu's brave stand for its own survival is reduced to a series of dumbed-down chants I wonder if many of the protestors have merely ventured to Denmark for a party. There's serious discussions being held inside the conference halls which needs to be held to account and kept on track.

That said, there are some activities which both convey a serious message and can be amusing without totally trashing the whole exercise. The nightly "Fossil of the Day" awards, staged by the Climate Action Network at every COP since Berlin 1999, are perhaps the most interesting example. Even if the presentations themselves consist of strained middle-class undergraduate humour (or am I getting confused with Australian Liberal Party caucus meetings here?).

The place to be for all of this action is www.fossiloftheday.com, which blogs all of the daily placegetters for Fossil Of The Day, complete with video of each nightly presentation and other related events.

As a patriotic, flag-waving, formerly Polly Waffle-eating Australian, I give you the awards ceremony from day two on Tuesday December 8, when Australia shared second place with the other member nations of the Umbrella Group for spruiking the benefits of Carbon Capture and Storage. Sadly, this love affair with the hypothetical "Clean Coal" is seriously compromising Australia's credibility in the global battle against climate change. This, then, is Tuesday's Fossil Of The Day ceremony: