The New Global Warming Thread

[Nikolas]

The benefits of 20th century economic globalization have not come without substantial cost. It is estimated that starvation kills at least 30,000 people per day worldwide - this alone is an indication that the current age of abundance has not come without cost. Just because you, as a citizen of a 'prosperous' country, doesn't pay that cost does not mean it is not a cost. Similar comparisons hold true for environmental costs as well.

You're also misinterpreting the point I was making, which is 'our' prosperity (the imbalanced prosperity of a few) has failed to prevent the misery of others.

I think you might be misinterpreting yourself... The two quotes above are contradictory.

[AMosely]

The first world did not get to a state of abundance by taking food from the mouths of third-world children. If you were given the choice between "everybody starves" and "some starve, some grow fat" would you choose "everybody starves" because it is more balanced?

I think tacking on this social commentary really weakens your points on the environment.

The point I was trying to make is that today, the problem is less about the balance and more about the choice. Read Gates' remarks if you don't understand what I'm talking about.

[AMosely]

I think you might be misinterpreting yourself... The two quotes above are contradictory.

Anyone who proclaims the virtues of America's (or any industrialized countries) prosperity is leaving out the unpaid costs being paid elsewhere. I'm only trying to make the distinction that for the sake of the argument I am making the two are tied together despite the obvious disconnects.

Instead of picking apart my hypotheses, why not provide a logical alternative?

[Kerostasis]

Here's a logical alternative: Africa's failure to feed its own people is not America's fault. America doesn't seize African crops and ship them to America so we can eat while they starve. Most starvation today is a side effect of civil war, rather than actual lack of food production.

[Silas Ender]

Here's a logical alternative: Africa's failure to feed its own people is not America's fault. America doesn't seize African crops and ship them to America so we can eat while they starve. Most starvation today is a side effect of civil war, rather than actual lack of food production.

I was about to say the same thing. About time someone made this point. It's not our job to carry the rest of the world on our backs. And to think that we could magically make it all better is naive in the extreme.

[Nikolas]

Instead of picking apart my hypotheses, why not provide a logical alternative?

Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go make them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!

In 2006, former World Bank economist William Easterly published The White Man's Burden, an analysis of "why the West's efforts to aid the rest have done so much ill and so little good". In this book he questioned the 'utopian social engineering' that the development community brings to local communities and plays the idea of the White Man's Burden through current benign intentions (Bill Gates, Bono, Jeffrey Sachs, etc.) ultimately derived from a long history of meddling in others' affairs - that usually goes wrong.

"In the early twentieth century, Americans talked of spreading Anglo-Saxon civilization and taking up the 'white man's burden'; today they talk of spreading democracy and defending human rights. Whatever you call it, this represents an idealistic impulse that has always been a big part in America's impetus for going to war."

What's the alternative? The piecemeal reform approach...would humbly acknowledge that nobody can fully grasp the complexity of the political, social, technological, ecological and economic systems that underlie poverty. It would eschew the arrogance that "we" know exactly how to fix "them." It would shy away from the hubris of what he labels the "breathtaking opportunity" that "we" have to spread democracy, technology, prosperity and perpetual peace to the entire planet. Large-scale crash programs, especially by outsiders, often produce unintended consequences. The simple dreams at the top run afoul of insufficient knowledge of the complex realities at the bottom. The Big Plans are impossible to evaluate scientifically afterward. Nor can you hold any specific agency accountable for their success or failure. Piecemeal reform, by contrast, motivates specific actors to take small steps, one at a time, then tests whether that small step made poor people better off, holds accountable the agency that implemented the small step, and considers the next small step.

What's the evidence on how well the two approaches work? Sachs pays surprisingly little attention to the history of aid approaches and results. He seems unaware that his Big Plan is strikingly similar to the early ideas that inspired foreign aid in the 1950s and '60s. Just like Sachs, development planners then identified countries caught in a "poverty trap," did an assessment of how much they would need to make a "big push" out of poverty and into growth, and called upon foreign aid to fill the "financing gap" between countries' own resources and needs. This legacy has influenced the bureaucratic approach to economic development that's been followed ever since -- albeit with some lip service to free markets -- by the World Bank, regional development banks, national aid agencies like USAID and the U.N. development agencies. Spending $2.3 trillion (measured in today's dollars) in aid over the past five decades has left the most aid-intensive regions, like Africa, wallowing in continued stagnation; it's fair to say this approach has not been a great success. (By the way, utopian social engineering does not just fail for the left; in Iraq, it's not working too well now for the right either.)

Meanwhile, some piecemeal interventions have brought success. Vaccination campaigns, oral rehydration therapy to prevent diarrhea and other aid-financed health programs have likely contributed to a fall in infant mortality in every region, including Africa. Aid projects have probably helped increase access to primary and secondary education, clean water and sanitation. Perhaps it is also easier to hold aid agencies accountable for results in these tangible areas. (Many of Sachs's specific recommendations might make sense as piecemeal reforms -- i.e., if done one at a time in small steps, with subsequent evaluation and accountability.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Mar10.html

[deathknight]

Oh, dear... I believe I'm very close to ending discussion with you about this.

Close mindedness is not a virtue.

Keep drinking the koolaid. The UN is not corrupt. SUVs are destroying the world.

Just because someone works for or with the UN doesn't make them an idiot or corrupt.

The first world did not get to a state of abundance by taking food from the mouths of third-world children. If you were given the choice between "everybody starves" and "some starve, some grow fat" would you choose "everybody starves" because it is more balanced?

I think tacking on this social commentary really weakens your points on the environment.

No, it only got there by exploiting children, the indians, blacks and anybody else it could to better itself.

[leejo]

No, it only got there by exploiting children, the indians, blacks and anybody else it could to better itself.

I know I did! Rarely a day goes by that I don't think about how I can pay the mortgage, current bills, save for my children's education, my retirement, fund various government projects with my taxes, and buy the occasional pair of slacks to replace the once that have shrunk somehow without wondering how I might keep the black man down in my spare time. If I can keep a black child down, so much the better. If I can keep an Indian down, too, roxors!

My clients may *think* I'm there to do the job they hired me to do, but in fact I'm exploiting children, indians, blacks, and anybody else I can to better myself.

Busted!

Whatever makes the world get hot.

[deathknight]

I know I did! Rarely a day goes by that I don't think about how I can pay the mortgage, current bills, save for my children's education, my retirement, fund various government projects with my taxes, and buy the occasional pair of slacks to replace the once that have shrunk somehow without wondering how I might keep the black man down in my spare time. If I can keep a black child down, so much the better. If I can keep an Indian down, too, roxors!

My clients may *think* I'm there to do the job they hired me to do, but in fact I'm exploiting children, indians, blacks, and anybody else I can to better myself.

Busted!

Whatever makes the world get hot.

Thanks for not exaggerating anything I said.

[Kerostasis]

Then please, elaborate on how I can construe what you said in a non-exagerrated fashion.

[CingularDuality]

...buy the occasional pair of slacks to replace the once that have shrunk somehow...

Man, my Hawaiian shirts have been shrinking lately, too...

[CingularDuality]

Anyone who proclaims the virtues of America's (or any industrialized countries) prosperity is leaving out the unpaid costs being paid elsewhere. I'm only trying to make the distinction that for the sake of the argument I am making the two are tied together despite the obvious disconnects.

Instead of picking apart my hypotheses, why not provide a logical alternative?

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, this is one of the most illogical things I think I've ever heard you say.

If I get a better job than my neighbor, and have better soil to garden in, a stream beside my house and discover oil in my backyard, while my neighbor has a crappy job, often has his water disconnected, can't grow much of a garden, has no oil, and to top it off his family is always fighting and the police show up every other night, is that my fault? Have I somehow not paid a debt that I owe to his children because I'm prosperous?

If I'm misunderstanding, then please clarify your position. It sounds like you're saying that the Western world's prosperity is at the cost of, in this case, Africa. I call BS on this one.

[leejo]

Man, my Hawaiian shirts have been shrinking lately, too...

Global Warming!

[BigGaayAl]

If I'm misunderstanding, then please clarify your position. It sounds like you're saying that the Western world's prosperity is at the cost of, in this case, Africa. I call BS on this one.

Actually, it's not rich Americans living off poor Africans. It's rich people all over the world living off poor people all over the world.

Your theory of irresponsibility is saddening. I call just as much BS on that.


And plz everyone stop equating the UN with corruption. That is severe bs. ONLY Americans have been fooled into thinking that, as a diversion by your administration, John Bolton and other morons. Off course a big organisation has it mishaps, but that is not enough to discredit everything it says. You guys don't throw away all info from republicans because most of them seem to be rather homosexual toilet-recreationalists, because Tom Delay is corrupt,..... NO this are isolated but the UN is all corrupt. ...

That is thinking the world revolves around your own *ss.

[Lucky Shot]

Bah, most American's don't know who John Bolton is or what he does. The opinion that the UN is corrupt comes from the many scandals that ooze from it such as Oil for Food.

But I have learned the lessons from Victocrats and suggest you give up Tangerines like the Edwards who are clearly doing everything they can while living off endangered species like Al Gore is. (I hear it tastes like something halfway between Giant Condor and a Spotted Owl).

But if you feel guilty, I can provide for you at an excessive cost a way to generate your own Carbon Offset certificate like I have!



Lucky Shot