It appears that the poor nations of the world are not inclined to engage in lots of happy face talk about being 70% renewable by 2050.
WASHINGTON - A day before President Bush's climate talks, China and other developing nations said Wednesday the need to provide food, shelter and clothes for their citizens must come ahead of global warming concerns.
"For a developing country, the main task is to reduce poverty," Xie Zhenhua, vice chairman of China's national development and reform commission, told a forum sponsored by the Center for Clean Air Policy, a think tank.
Mexico's environment minister agreed. "We have always to bear in mind that half our population is at the poverty line," said Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada. "We are also extremely concerned about the consequences, the adverse affects of climate change."
Personally, I have always felt as an ethical and
practical imperative the matter of climate change should not be the province of a bunch of poorly educated distracted trust fund brats who join Greenpeace and engage in big talk about hydrogen hypercar SUV's. I have always thought that
poor people around the world - who may wonder why Americans are allowed to live like Americans while they are not allowed to gave a single lamp at night - are the most important segment to engage on climate change.
Rather than address this
serious concern, Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) decided that it would be easier to talk about this subject by changing the subject to insulting
atheists by suggesting that we're Bushlike.
WASHINGTON - A day before President Bush's climate talks, China and other developing nations said Wednesday the need to provide food, shelter and clothes for their citizens must come ahead of global warming concerns.
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"For a developing country, the main task is to reduce poverty," Xie Zhenhua, vice chairman of China's national development and reform commission, told a forum sponsored by the Center for Clean Air Policy, a think tank.
Mexico's environment minister agreed. "We have always to bear in mind that half our population is at the poverty line," said Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada. "We are also extremely concerned about the consequences, the adverse affects of climate change..."
...The chairman of the panel, Democratic Rep. Edward Markey, said that the visitors have a difficult case to make in persuading the White House of the need for mandatory caps.
"The world has been asked to Washington to discuss this issue this week," said Markey, D-Mass. "But it is a little bit like being invited to a prayer breakfast with a group of fellow believers, but the meeting is hosted by an atheist."
I am usually loathe to criticize Democrats, but this asshole comment by Markey goes way too far.
First of all, climate change is not a matter of faith, it's a matter of fucking science. It's a measurable effect that is traceable from first scientific principles.
Got it Representative Markey?
Secondly, the American Atheist Community has been forced to live in the closet, has had its citizenship threatened, it's ethics besmirched by a bunch of religious bigots who couldn't care less about the most important
moral issue, climate change, about which the Bush family - religious inflexible dogmatists all - couldn't care less, and its rights threatened.
Generally I have a sense of humor, but this remark is on the level of something one might hear from Tom Delay, Bill Frist or Dennis Hassert.
Maybe Markey things climate change is a stupid joke, I don't know.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070926/ap_on_go_ot/global_warming