Three Dog Night’s hit song, “One,” discussed unrequited love, declaring “One is the loneliest number.” In 2009, the loneliest number at the Copenhagen UN Climate Change Conference (COP 15) was 350.

In parts per million (ppm), 350 is the maximum amount of carbon we can have in our atmosphere that will allow earth to continue to support life as we know it. The present levels are over 390 PPM. In order for the human race as a species and the other species we share the earth with to survive, we have to make a serious commitment to reduce our carbon footprint to 350 ppm. Why then was 350 the loneliest number at COP15?

The richest nations want to gut the Kyoto Accord, signed in 1999, that set carbon emission target levels to those of 1990. The only major player that refused to sign Kyoto was the United States; this was done under the leadership of George W. Bush. In 2008, candidate Barack Obama said he would, as president, sign the Kyoto Accord.

Now, President Obama, along with Senators John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, Barbara Boxer and others want to turn the Kyoto Accord on its ear, essentially changing the rules at halftime in the Climate Change Super Bowl, setting as a goal a return to levels from 2005 instead of 1990. It was the president who described as “victory” what is only a promise to do the right thing with no real commitment on anyone’s part.

This is a continuation of the politics of denial that dominate the climate change discussion in our country, and in the long term will have an adverse effect on the United States. The so-called “Blue Dog” Democratic senators, namely Kent Conrad and Evan Bayh, have already declared D.O.A. the idea of any action in an election year on a climate change bill by the most deliberative legislative body in the world, buying the time needed for the richest nations to solidify their dominance over the world.

This dominance is bought at the expense of the poorer nations in the global south, especially in the African sub-Saharan region from drought and the Island nations in the Pacific and the Indian Oceans, which are now facing possible extinction from rising sea levels.

In this climate change face-off, we can divide the nations of the earth into two categories. The first are the carnivores: the nations of the developed world (Europe, the U.S., Canada, Japan, Israel and to a lesser degree Russia), the colonizers who have ruled the planet, consumed its resources and controlled its wealth for the last 500 years.

The second are the herbivores, who have been historically the colonized nations, and the Resource Bargain Barn for the carnivores; these are the developing global south nations.

The carnivores are eager to impose rules that do not provide a level playing field for the herbivores to address the critical issue of climate change while allowing their fledgling economies to grow. The carnivores are using their tremendous wealth and military power as clubs to try to stack the deck.

But their power is being challenged by an unlikely group of herbivores: the Island nations and the Sub-Saharan Nations of Africa, who are using the weight of the moral issue of their immediate survival as nations and human beings. What will this mean in the long run for the US?

In the lyrics of the song, “One,” there is a caution for the U.S., which goes “One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do / two can be bad as one / it’s the loneliest number since the number one.” We may find ourselves lined up with our European cousins, against the rest of the world in an environmental and moral quandary more serious than when we invaded Iraq.

The people of the world are adopting 350 as the standard needed to protect life. Can we, as a nation who sees itself as “pro-life,” continue to flout the 350 standard and ravage the temple we live in: Earth?

Respond to Pat at [email protected]