A year after she was finishing a two-year appointment at NCAR, Mercy Borbor Córdova was literally on the world stage, serving as a delegate from Ecuador at the Copenhagen climate summit.

At first glance, the Copenhagen conference seemed like an alternate universe—enormous, byzantine, and riddled with customs and folkways that weren’t at all obvious to someone who’s never been to such a meeting.

There was a palpable sense of history in the making across Europe as some 15,000 expected participants in the Copenhagen climate conference began to converge upon the Continent.

Even though reports continue to pour in about melting glaciers, sea ice loss, and temperatures across much of the globe remaining unusually warm, fewer and fewer Americans seem to believe the climate is warming.

Diplomats from almost 200 countries met in Copenhagen, Denmark, to huddle, confer, cajole, and eventually forge the structure of a new global agreement to reduce carbon emissions.