Showing posts with label environmentalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environmentalism. Show all posts

Monday, September 26, 2011

Carbon Credits: Plant A Tree, Starve A Human

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Finance Minister of Niger...                    Image via Wikipedia
From their website, slathered in green righteousness:
The New Forests Company is a UK-based sustainable and socially responsible forestry company with established, rapidly growing plantations and the prospect of a diversified product base for local and regional export markets which will deliver both attractive returns to investors and significant social and environmental benefits.
From InfoWars.Com:
Armed troops acting on behalf of a British carbon trading company backed by the World Bank burned houses to the ground and killed children to evict Ugandans from their homes in the name of seizing land to protect against “global warming,” a shocking illustration of how the climate change con is a barbarian form of neo-colonialism. 
The evictions were ordered by New Forests Company, an outfit that seizes land in Africa to grow trees then sells the “carbon credits” on to transnational corporations. The company is backed by the World Bank and HSBC. Its Board of Directors includes HSBC Managing Director Sajjad Sabur, as well as other former Goldman Sachs investment bankers.
The company claims residents of Kicucula left in a “peaceful” and “voluntary” manner, and yet the people tell a story of terror and bloodshed. 
Villagers told of how armed “security forces” stormed their village and torched houses, burning an eight-year-child to death as they threatened to murder anyone who resisted while beating others. 
“We were in church,” recalled Jean-Marie Tushabe, 26, a father of two. “I heard bullets being shot into the air.” 
“Cars were coming with police,” Mr. Tushabe said, sitting among the ruins of his old home. “They headed straight to the houses. They took our plates, cups, mattresses, bed, pillows. Then we saw them getting a matchbox out of their pockets.”
“But in this case, the government and the company said the settlers were illegal and evicted for a good cause: to protect the environment and help fight global warming,” reports the New York Times
Another leftist initiative gone horribly bad. When it comes to green, the poorest of the poor don't count, because, when it comes to leftist initiatives toward the third world, it's not about them, it's about us. Always.
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Sunday, May 15, 2011

Fair Trade Coffee: Another Well-Meaning Initiative Gone Bad

Brewing Justice: Fair Trade Coffee, Sustainabi...                                        Image via Wikipedia
I've never been a big fan of fair trade coffee. Knowing its roots in environmentalism and western do-goodism, I figured it was largely symbolic and decided to just stay a straight consumer. I'm willing to pay a fair price for coffee; I just don't need to buy coffee that's marked "Fair Trade".

Turns out, good call.

This article vindicates my hunch.

When it comes to well-meaning initiatives to help the 3rd world, whether it's "Make Poverty History", or carbon offsets, or whatever, it's not really about helping others; it's about us. Let that last thought sink in. It's more about "doing something" and helping form or solidify our western self-image, appeasing western guilt and self-loathing, or feeling good about ourselves, than about actually helping people.

Here's an excerpt:
Along the way, the church officer mentioned that the parishioners wanted to do what they could to help poor farmers in the Third World. I replied that I’d be happy to supply the church, but I also advised him that fair-trade coffee would not help the poorest of farmers — these smallholders are actually hurt when Western consumers forsake them for coffee produced by better-off farmers who can afford the certification fees.
I also mentioned that various coffees produced by small farmers in some of the neediest parts of Africa would taste superb while costing the church less, allowing it to spend the difference on some other worthwhile cause.
After a long pause, the church official replied something like: “I still think the parishioners would feel better knowing that they were drinking fair-trade coffee.”
See, it's not really about "them"; it's all about us.
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Saturday, April 16, 2011

The Earth Has Rights Too; After All, It's Only Human

Rex MurphyImage by rowdyman via Flickr
Rex Murphy has the latest leftist lunacy in his crosshairs. Saith Rex:
... just this week, Bolivia’s president, Eva Morales, hailed national legislation that would enshrine the “rights of Mother Nature” — human rights extended to earth itself. Pause to marvel at the powers of the Bolivian legislature. May we note that Morales is a James Cameron fan? I think we may.
Vice-President Alvaro García Linera describes the country’s new legislation (“The Law of Mother Earth”) as making “world history. Earth is the mother of all.” He also gushed that the law “establishes a new relationship between man and nature.”
The Earth has rights too; after all, it's only human. Or something to that effect.

Maybe it's, the earth has rights; after all humans are only earth.

At any rate, the movement to grant Mother Earth rights in her own, er, right, may well turn out to be the ultimate expression of environmentalism, darwinian downgradism (we're animals and nothing more, reducible to unplanned molecules in unplanned motion), and feminism (exalting Mother Earth rather leaves Father Sky in the, er, dirt, doesn't it?!).


And then Rex's money quote.
I am growing more and more confident that the number-one threat to the health, safety and future of our planet is the assortment of fanatics who are proposing to save it. They are, as in this farcical Bolivian étude, jettisoning every product of our rationalistic heritage, degrading the advances in reason and science, and regressing to the raw beliefs of those days when, as Milton, wrote “all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones.”
When the conscious creature — that would be Man — condescends to worship the inanimate one — that would be the Stone — the order of things is inverted and undone.
Another great article from Rex.

PS -- I'm pretty sure Rex has had a hair cut since this picture was snapped.


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Sunday, March 27, 2011

Has "Let There Be Dark" Earth Hour Lost Its Mojo?

BERLIN, GERMANY - MARCH 26:  The Brandenburg G...Image by Getty Images via @daylife
"Earth Hour may be losing steam as novelty wears off".

Or maybe it's because people are wisening up?

I was so apathetic this year, I didn't even bother going around turning all my lights on.

How did you not observe Earth Hour?
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"... nothing intellectually compelling or challenging.. bald assertions coupled to superstition... woefully pathetic"