Amy Goodman is in the middle of two weeks of Democracy Now broadcasts from the climate conference in Copenhagen. The information is invaluable, as she seeks to give voice to the disadvantaged and under-represented at the conference. Her coverage never fails to point out the idiosyncrasies in the ways of "business as usual."

I was struck by the following excellent interview with Kumi Naidoo, the director of Greenpeace International, who has some truly brilliant thoughts about the conference, climate debt, about the role and participation of the USA, his background as an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa, as well as President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize.

Here's a link to, and an excerpt from, the segment. Important coverage, from Democracy Now:

Kumi Naidoo of Greenpeace on Obama’s Peace Prize, Obama’s War, Copenhagen and Climate Debt

AMY GOODMAN: It’s very good to have you with us. As you sat here watching President Obama’s Nobel acceptance speech, actually just about 300 miles away in another Scandinavian capital, in Oslo, Norway, your thoughts?

KUMI NAIDOO: Well, firstly, we congratulate President Obama on his achievement. We welcome his statements on working for nuclear disarmament. But overall, I think the speech spent too much of time on justifying war, too little time looking at the root causes of war, and, in fact, the one—just only one passing reference to climate change and, in fact, this big summit taking place here.

If we understand what’s happening in terms of the current impacts of climate change, climate change is driving up conflict across the world and, in fact, is probably the biggest threat to our security in the future. So therefore, while we wish him well in accepting this Nobel Peace Prize, overall, we would have wanted to see much more commitment to saying that what he was going to do when he came back to Copenhagen in a week’s time was to actually work hard for delivering a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty. And the fact that there was no mention to it, that is quite disappointing.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the role that the US is playing here in the climate negotiations? Can you explain what’s happening behind the scenes?

KUMI NAIDOO: Well, the US delegation here has, overall, been largely playing a negative role. Todd Stern, the leader of the delegation, surprised us yesterday when he said that the reason that the US government was not pushing for a legally binding treaty was because that was the preference of the Danish government. Now that sounds really strange to us. Since when the Danish government had so much of influence over the US government?

...see the segment or read more to find out how.