Okay, here’s what’s really, really positive about the Copenhagen treaty conference now nearing its second week of talks: the activism. There are tens of thousands of citizen activists here: students, indigenous leaders, faith leaders. They are colorful and noisy and have really left a mark on the proceedings. On Monday, on the downtown streets of Copenhagen, I met a young Congolese climate activist who spoke the same obscure African language I spoke 25 years ago as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I was in the snow, in Scandinavia, speaking Tshiluba with a fellow climate activist from the Congo. Wow. We’re making progress.

And indeed the whole world is paying attention. If you Google “Copenhagen” today you get 43 million hits. But it’s unclear, just 48 hours from the end of the talks, what will happen here. The negotiating nations are still far apart on global emissions targets and how to finance clean-energy development in poor nations.

And now, tragically, with heads of state from 115 countries now arriving in full, the UN has decided to expel from the Bella conference center just about all the activists and other “non-governmental” representatives. The one really bright spot — the inspiration of grassroots voices — is being booted out of the room. Activists are now planning to gather elsewhere downtown for vigils, a “fossil” award ceremony that shames the most intransigent nations (the US has gotten two so far this week), and on Friday a giant aerial photo of activists forming the words “350 is Survival.” 350 of course is the level of carbon pollution leading scientists say is needed to save the planet. Right now, all the proposals from all the nations now officially on the negotiating table would actually lead the world by 2100 to about 770 parts per million carbon. It would be — literally — hell on Earth.

John Holdren, Obama’s own science adviser, told an audience here that the goal was to get the world toward 450 parts per million. The President’s science adviser seemed uninformed of the latest climate science.

Students staged a really big, inspiring demonstration in the middle of the Bella Center Wednesday to tell Holdren and other negotiators that compromise with the physics of climate change is not possible. We must commit to 350 now. Hundreds of students from over 40 nations sat cross-legged on the floor and read the names of 11 MILLION people worldwide who’ve signed a petition demanding a strong treaty. CCAN staffer Kat McEachern read the names of signers from Costa Rica, Latvia, and South Korea.

Many here believe — and I’m one of them — that a bad treaty is worse than a treaty that locks the world into 700 parts per million CO2 by 2100. Already, Vice President Al Gore on Wednesday seemed to suggest a binding treaty was not in the cards this week, and that we should all shoot for next year in Mexico City.

That’s better, in my view, than a dramatically compromised piece of paper. As May Boeve of 350.org said, “It’s not like compromise in the past has in any way slowed down global warming. Maybe we should try something different, like pushing for policies that match the science.”

In a valiant, last-minute attempt to push leaders toward “a real deal” that will fix the climate treaty here in Copenhagen, the group 350.org on Wednesday called on concerned Americans to phone Obama and to consider making a meaningful, profound, personal sacrifice: fasting for 24 hours. I’m going to do it. I’m going to skip food here in Copenhagen all day Thursday. It’s one more thing I can do to show solidarity with the African delegations here who brought bushels of shriveled, drought-decimated corn to show how climate change is already dramatically affecting that continent.

Consider phoning and fasting today. Learn more at www.350.org

The real problem here, according the Jeremy Symons of the National Wildlife Federation, is that the Obama team suffers from ADD: Ambition Deficit Disorder. There really does seem to be much more citizen-based desire for action than the US delegation has ambition.

It’s too bad because the whole world is watching, hundreds of thousands are phoning and fasting, — and as recent as Tuesday polls showed over 70 percent of Americans believe global warming is a real problem in need of real solutions — now.

Bottom line: What we don’t need from Copenhagen is a weak compromise and a piece of paper — just paper — for Obama to sign Friday during a drive-by hug. We need a treaty that protects the poor nations, holds rich nations accountable, and gets us to 350 parts per million carbon in the atmosphere by 2100.

And we need it now, in Copenhagen, in 2009, not later, somewhere else, in some other capital city.

Now. Here. For all of us.