THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIV, Issue # 132, June 20, 2012
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
RIO+20 -- THE GREATEST THREAT TO BIODIVERSITY:
99% of Species & Humans Ill-Served by the
0.1% UN & Environmentalist Elites
By Paul K. Driessen & David Rothbard
THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON "SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT" & "BIODIVERSITY" UNDERWAY IN RIO DE JANNEIRO, BRAZIL: SEEKING TO
IMPOSE FAR-REACHING ENERGY, ENVIRONMENTAL, & ECONOMIC POLICIES ON DEVELOPED & DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ALIKE -- UNSUBSTANTIATED CLAIMS
THAT THE PROPOSED POLICY CHANGES ARE ESSENTIAL TO PREVENT MASS EXTINCTIONS OF VITAL PLANT & ANIMAL SPECIES -- RADICAL IDEOLOGIES,
ANTI-DEVELOPMENT POLICY AGENDAS, & SUFFOCATING REGULATIONS BEING PROMOTED AT THE RIO+20 SUMMIT -- PERPETUATION OF POVERTY, MISERY,
DISEASE, & PREMATURE DEATH IN THE POOREST NATIONS ON EARTH -- THE GREATEST DANGER OF ALL TO THE VERY SPECIES THE ENVIRONMENTALISTS
CLAIM THEY WANT TO PROTECT
FULL STORY:
The UN Conference on Sustainable Development is underway in Rio de Janeiro. This time, 20 years after the original 1992 Rio “Earth Summit,” thousands of
politicians, bureaucrats, and environmental activists are toning down references to “dangerous man-made climate change,” to avoid repeating the acrimony and
failures that characterized its recent climate conferences in Copenhagen, Cancun, and Durban.
Instead, “Rio+20” is trying to shift attention to “biodiversity” and alleged threats to plant and animal species, as the new “greatest threat” facing Planet Earth.
This rebranding is “by design,” according to conference organizers, who say sustainable development and biodiversity is an “easier sell” these days than climate
change: a simpler path to advance the same radical goals.
Those goals include expanded powers and budgets for the United Nations, UN Environment Programme, US Environmental Protection Agency and other
government agencies, and their allied Green pressure groups; new taxes on international financial transactions (to ensure perpetual independent funding for the
UN and UNEP); and more mandates and money for “clean, green, renewable” energy.
Their wish list also includes myriad opportunities to delay, prevent, and control energy and economic development, hydrocarbon use, logging, farming, family size,
and the right of individual countries, states, communities, and families to make and regulate their own development and economic decisions.
Aside from not giving increased power to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats and activists, there are two major reasons for stopping this attempted
biodiversity-based power grab.
(1) There is no scientific basis for claims that hundreds or thousands of species are at risk.
Up to half of all species could go extinct by 2100, asserts astronomer and global warming alarmist James Hansen, because of climate change, “unsustainable”
hydrocarbon use, human population growth, and economic development. At Rio+20, activists are trumpeting these hysterical claims in reports, speeches and press
releases. Fortunately, there is no factual basis for them.
Of 191 bird and mammal species recorded as having gone extinct since 1500, 95% were on islands, where humans and human-introduced predators and diseases
wrought the destruction, notes ecology researcher Dr. Craig Loehle. On continents, only six birds and three mammals were driven to extinction, and no bird or
mammal species in recorded history is known to have gone extinct due to climate change.
The massive species losses claimed by Hansen, Greenpeace, WWF, and others are based on extrapolations from the island extinction rates. Some are just wild
guesses or rank fear-mongering, with nothing remotely approximating scientific analysis. Other extrapolations are based on unfounded presumptions about
species susceptibility to longterm or shortterm climate shifts – fed into clumsy, simplistic, non-validated virtual reality computer models that assume rising carbon
dioxide levels will raise planetary temperatures so high that plants, habitats, and thus birds, reptiles, and animals will somehow be exterminated. There is no
evidence to support any of these extinction scenarios.
Indeed, there is no empirical evidence to support claims that average global temperatures have risen since 1998, or that we face any of the manmade global
warming or climate change cataclysms proclaimed by Hansen, Gore, and others.
(2) The greatest threats to species are the very policies and programs being advocated in Rio.
Those policies would ban fossil fuels, greatly increase renewable energy use, reduce jobs and living standards in rich nations, and perpetuate poverty, disease,
death, and desperation in poor countries.
Today, over 1.5 billion people still do not have electricity, or have it only a few hours each day or week. Almost 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day.
Millions die every year from diseases that would be largely eradicated by access to reliable, affordable electricity for cooking and refrigeration, clinics and
hospitals, clean water, sanitation, and businesses and industries that generate jobs, prosperity, and health.
Opposition to large-scale electricity generation forces people to rely on open fires for cooking and heating – perpetuating lung diseases and premature death, from
breathing smoke and pollutants. It also destroys gorilla and other wildlife habitats, as people cut trees and brush for firewood and charcoal.
Wind turbines slice up birds and collapse bat lungs, exacting an unsustainable toll on eagles, hawks, falcons, and other rare, threatened, and endangered flying
creatures.
Turbine and solar arrays cover and disrupt millions of acres of farmland and wildlife habitat, to provide expensive, intermittent power for urban areas. They require
backup generators and long transmission lines, and consume millions of tons of concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass, polymers, and rare earth minerals – extracted
from the Earth, often in countries whose pollution control regulations and technologies are substantially below U.S., Canadian, European and Australian
standards.
Corn-based ethanol requires tens of millions of acres, billions of gallons of water, millions of tons of fertilizer and insecticides, and enormous quantities of
hydrocarbon fuels.
And, yet, U.S. President Obama told Ghanaians in 2010 that poor, electricity-deprived, malnourished Africans should rely on biofuel, wind, and solar power – and
not build even gas-fired power plants.
Hunting, subsistence living, and poverty are among the greatest risks to species. Denying poor families access to reliable, affordable electricity is a crime against
humanity
The Rio+20 biodiversity and sustainability agenda means artificially reduced energy and economic development. It means rationed resources, sustained poverty
and disease, and unsustainable inequality, resentment, conflict, and pressure on wildlife and their habitats.
Simply put, 99% of humans and wild kingdom species are being ill-served by the 0.1% UN and environmentalist elites gathered in Brazil, and purporting to speak
for mankind and planet.
Our Creator has endowed us with a world rich in resources, and even richer in intelligent, hard-working, creative people who yearn to improve their lives and be
better stewards of our lands, resources, and wildlife. The primary obstacles to achieving these dreams are the false ideologies, anti-development agendas, and
suffocating regulations being promoted at the Rio+20 Summit.
If we can eliminate those obstacles, the world will enjoy a rebirth of freedom and opportunity, voluntarily stable populations, and vastly improved health, welfare,
and justice for billions. We will also bring far greater security to Earth’s wondrous multitudes of wild and scenic areas, and plant and animal species.
That would be an enormous gain for our planet and people.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
The United Nations, Its Agencies, & U.S. National Interests
Paul K. Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Washington, D.C.-based Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of
Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death. David Rothbard serves as CFACT’s President.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity