The current United Nations response to environmental concerns is doing more harm than good.
A great article by Bjorn Lomborg appeared last week in Newsweek magazine. The author has a different analysis than I do with respect to whether significant global warming is currently being caused by humans – and whether that warming is likely to be a problem decades hence (backup link).
But despite his contrary analysis, Lomborg argues persuasively that the UN-led response to poverty and environmental issues is still fundamentally flawed. His piece examines the Rio+20 conference scheduled for later this month. Between June 20 and 22, a self-selected group of people will discuss – on behalf of all of us and prior to any meaningful consultation with most of the world’s citizenry – “The Future We Want.”
It is a terrible irony that some of the people who express the most concern about the world’s poorest communities are advocating costly, unworkable solutions that will impoverish even more of us. Wealth saves lives. It pays for hospitals, doctors, and medicine. Desperate people with sick children need all of those. The last thing they have time for is well-fed bureaucrats who tell them their poverty equals sustainable living.
Until well-intentioned green activists address these sorts of inconvenient truths, gushers of money will continue to be totally wasted. Here are a few sobering quotes from Lomborg’s piece:
As long as wind turbines and solar panels remain more expensive than fossil fuels while working only intermittently, they will never contribute much to our energy supply. Germany, the world’s largest per capita consumer of solar energy, produces just 0.3 percent of its energy this way. And to achieve this No. 1 status, the country has paid $130 billion for $12 billion worth of energy.
Read more: http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/06/04/poverty-pollutes-lomborg-on-the-rio20-conference/
A great article by Bjorn Lomborg appeared last week in Newsweek magazine. The author has a different analysis than I do with respect to whether significant global warming is currently being caused by humans – and whether that warming is likely to be a problem decades hence (backup link).
But despite his contrary analysis, Lomborg argues persuasively that the UN-led response to poverty and environmental issues is still fundamentally flawed. His piece examines the Rio+20 conference scheduled for later this month. Between June 20 and 22, a self-selected group of people will discuss – on behalf of all of us and prior to any meaningful consultation with most of the world’s citizenry – “The Future We Want.”
It is a terrible irony that some of the people who express the most concern about the world’s poorest communities are advocating costly, unworkable solutions that will impoverish even more of us. Wealth saves lives. It pays for hospitals, doctors, and medicine. Desperate people with sick children need all of those. The last thing they have time for is well-fed bureaucrats who tell them their poverty equals sustainable living.
Until well-intentioned green activists address these sorts of inconvenient truths, gushers of money will continue to be totally wasted. Here are a few sobering quotes from Lomborg’s piece:
As long as wind turbines and solar panels remain more expensive than fossil fuels while working only intermittently, they will never contribute much to our energy supply. Germany, the world’s largest per capita consumer of solar energy, produces just 0.3 percent of its energy this way. And to achieve this No. 1 status, the country has paid $130 billion for $12 billion worth of energy.
Read more: http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/06/04/poverty-pollutes-lomborg-on-the-rio20-conference/
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