August 31, 2002

I haven't bother following the

I haven't bother following the U.S.-bashing--I mean United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development. The talk is the same: evil multinational corporations are exploiting the Third World to line the pockets of the already super rich. The solutions are the same as at any other summit of this type: more foreign aid; a Tobin tax; drastic environmental regulations; barring genetic research. Protesters insult President Bush's intelligence, demand freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the end to free trade. This summit is like any other Lefty confab where the U.S. and capitalism is blamed for the world's troubles, while their solutions are risky, pie-in-the-sky, utopia schemes. But as Bjorn Lomborg notes, the world isn't in that bad a shape:

There is, however, one problem: this litany is not supported by the evidence. Energy and other natural resources have become more abundant, not less so. More food is now produced per capita than at any time in the world's history. Fewer people are starving. Species are, it is true, becoming extinct. But only about 0.7 percent of them are expected to disappear in the next 50 years, not the 20 percent to 50 percent that some have predicted. Most forms of environmental pollution look as though they have either been exaggerated or are transient--associated with the early phases of industrialization. They are best cured not by restricting economic growth but by accelerating it.

People, like most editorial boards of U.S. newspapers, who are too consumed by white liberal guilt ignore the facts and support Leftist solutions. It doesn't matter whether the solutions actually do what they're designed to do or help people. As long as we (i.e. the U.S.) "do something" their guilt is assuaged.

"The Environmentalists Are Wrong"