Not much in terms of effective policy came out of the 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen, or COP15. In fact, the best that can probably be said is that nations agreed to disagree; poor ones unwilling to take on carbon emission reductions that would stunt their industrial growth, and rich ones unwilling to take the blame for emissions that have, to date, caused most of the problems and benefited rich nations most of all.

To highlight this ambivalence, on January 26 Yvo de Boer, United Nation’s senior climate change official, noted that governments could either comply with proposed emissions limits by the deadline, or later if they preferred – a paradox that has led many to ask what the purpose of the deadline was?

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Most environmental business blogs seem to have glossed right over coverage of Greenpeace’s rather untraditional message to President Obama on Mount Rushmore two weeks ago, though a quarter-page photo in the front section of the New York Times certainly did not. Citing discontent with Obama’s acquiescence to compromises on environmental policy, a group of eleven activists draped a massive banner next to Abraham Lincoln’s face bearing the message “America honors leaders, not politicians: Stop Global Warming.” The action came as the President met with world leaders to discuss climate change at the G8 summit, and brings to light divides among the environmental community that are becoming even more apparent thanks to the debate over the Waxman-Markey bill.

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