"I just feel that it is so completely unfair and immoral what we are doing to future generations, we are condemning them before they are even born."

I agree with her 100%. But "before they are even born"? does this mean they MUST be born? For some of us, keeping our own baby from the rest of this century is enough of a reason to not even cause the non-existent child to be born at all.
I know millions of women around the world don't have any choice about making the innocent little babies. But those of us who can see all that's coming, especially the mass-extinction, should be able to reason well enough to understand it is completely immoral to make a new baby on purpose.

edit- Unless you're religious of course! Then heaven is somewhere else so make loads and loads of babies!

But it also fills me with burning rage.

Only the few who actually care what tomorrow is like. Who bear some sense of responsibility to the planet they share.
For the rest, it is business as usual.
In the face of the greatest calamity to befall us. Bigger than plagues, slavery, dictators and empires. Instead of facing it head on, in spite of all the ideals they may have proclaimed of how they would have stood against those same injustices of the past, when faced with the greatest injustice of all, they hide and curl up like sow bugs.

It's true. I have to come to E/E every day because in real life I don't know one single person who really cares. I know one or two who say they mind it all, if pressed. But most people I know just could not give the least damn.
I've been shown over and over, every day, why I should not have ANY hope for humans. The only thing I know is the sooner we burn out the sooner the rest of the species will have a chance.

what a legacy the generations that are alive today have. So much personal 'I want', so little 'I care'. Sure there is ignorance, but there are so many who could shed light to those in the dark, but won't. There are others that could shed light, but don't feel they have the time. And still others, that know the situation, but can't even make the adjustment, the example, in their own life.

This collective feeling humans have at this time, that we really can't do with much less, so at least a reduced number might survive tomorrow.

I grew up in the fifties, and felt rich with a middle class existence. And indeed that existence was rich and pampered, compared to any other generation that had existed before. In comparison I feel today's expectations of first world living to be obscene, if the future must be sacrificed as a result. I would happily retire to the realities of the world that enabled my grandparents to thrive, even with their toil.

Ms. Figueres is correct, what is happening now, is "completely unfair and immoral". And that result is of our choice, it is not because we are hard wired to demand maximum use of energy, it is because we collectively have not learned to control individual desire over the collective need of the commons, present and future. It is a choice, not to conserve, not to over populate, and not to step back from the precipice with a change of lifestyle and expectations.

Just my minuscule, opinion.

After Copenhagen, I have come to expect very little from those "in charge" and from "leaders".

What can you say when someone like Tony Abbott can rise to power in a nation ostensibly well-fixed in the matrix of science and rationality, and when his very first actions as Prime Minister include eliminating the carbon tax and dismantling a senior government climate panel?

What can you say when Chinese authorities in Harbin hem and haw and talk about winter weather when the atmospheric pm 2.5 hits 1,000 and then moves even higher?

What can you say when starfish melt, sardines disappear and manatees die by the hundreds; when the oil company that poisoned the Ecuadorean Amazon sues Ecuador for the inconvenience of being (briefly) expected to pay; when the supposedly environmentally aware Democratic president does everything he can to speed development of 60% of Keystone XL and still talks about "clean coal"; and when, in the midst of these developments and countless more, we're drowning in Kardashians, fashions and tales from celebrity rehab?

Human beings are no longer in charge, nor are treaties, agreements, protocols or good intentions.

Business as usual is in charge.

"Win-win solutions" are in charge.

Industrial inertia is in charge.

The keening, endless desires of consumerism are are in charge.

Most of all, and most fundamentally, nature is now fully in charge, but we haven't quite gotten to the point where we can admit that to ourselves.

Future generations will be lining up to piss on our collective graves (assuming they've got that much leisure time while dodging from rock to rock in search of shade, trying to avoid hydrogen sulfide eruptions off Atlantic City and Perth and Copenhagen, of course).

We've always thought it was about us.

We've finally managed to push the system so far from equilibrium that it's about to fall over, and we're finally noticing that it's out of balance. We couldn't help ourselves when we were doing it, and we can't help ourselves now. There was no way to avoid arriving here, and there's no way to turn back. No blame, just the facts.

> What can you say when someone like Tony Abbott can rise to power in a nation ostensibly
> well-fixed in the matrix of science and rationality, and when his very first actions as Prime
> Minister include eliminating the carbon tax and dismantling a senior government climate panel?
>
> What can you say when Chinese authorities in Harbin hem and haw and talk about winter weather
> when the atmospheric pm 2.5 hits 1,000 and then moves even higher?
>
> What can you say when starfish melt, sardines disappear and manatees die by the hundreds;
> when the oil company that poisoned the Ecuadorean Amazon sues Ecuador for the inconvenience
> of being (briefly) expected to pay; when the supposedly environmentally aware Democratic president
> does everything he can to speed development of 60% of Keystone XL and still talks about "clean coal";
> and when, in the midst of these developments and countless more, we're drowning in Kardashians,
> fashions and tales from celebrity rehab?