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For the Kids? Save the planet: live in poverty.
~ Bill Clinton"We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren."
Link to original story here.
This is one thing I will never understand about the whole global warming movement. Why on earth would we want to slow down our economy! Are poor, unemployed people naturally more planet friendly? We are to be stewards of the earth, but this does not mean we should give up technology. I believe that technology eventually leads to a cleaner environment. By not continuing to grow the economy and develop new technology things become stagnant. Change is good, change is natural. Do the best you can, the earth has and will continue to take care of itself.
Comments
Sadly in the short term poor people are more eco-friendly as they do not consume as many resouces.
Bill Clinton's statement is primarily aimed at westerners who are over consumers. Many of us have muliple cars, tvs, electrical goods and wastefully walk around in t-shirts inside in the winter, thermostat set high, rather than add a jumper or two.
And the poor people of the world want what we have. They want fridges and cars. Tvs and consumer goods. All of which is eco-unfriendly.
Ideally the science would already be in place so that the increasingly industrialised countries could skip the wasteful industrialised eco-unfriendly phase of the first-world economy. But we arn't there yet.
However I don't think we should stop and reverse direction in the western world, nor do I think we should prevent the 3rd world getting to where we want to be. We should however be prepared to support other countries achieve world-wide goals on the grounds that if we don't, we will suffer too.
My point is that I don't think the "problem" cannot be condensed to economy vs. earth as Clinton seems to imply.
Quote: "We should however be prepared to support other countries achieve world-wide goals on the grounds that if we don't, we will suffer too."
I'm sure you're aware of how much money flows out of the United States into many foreign aid programs. Not to mention many private social and religious aid organizations. How many billions of dollars have flowed into Africa for example?
What sort of support are you suggesting? More money? More shared technology? At what point is it not worth it?