A climate conference in Dubai? Really? Gathering for more talk about the imperative to move past fossil fuels in a place that is literally made out of oil seems more than a little out of touch. A moonscape of a desert that would be almost entirely uninhabited were it not for the voodoo of air conditioning is now home to year-round skiing and private islands shaped like jellyfish. For the sultans of sustainability to fly in on their private jets from all points of the globe to a land that owes its very existence to continued global demand for fossil fuels, and to wax alarmist and philosophical about how the world needs to reduce our dependence on blah, blah, blah…

It’s all talk. Even the choice of where to have the COP28 shows how hollow the whole endeavor has become. The larger voices are already talking down any possible outcomes from this, the latest planetary gabfest. Don’t expect anything to change.