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Killing People to "Save" the Environment

alan Caruba
Friday, april 22, 2005

I confess it took me a long time to realize that much of what passes for the environmental movement or environmentalism involves imposing restrictions that (1) destroy economic growth and (2) often destroys lives.

a perfect example of both these Green objectives is the utterly vile efforts of the Rainforest action Network (RaN) that have been directed of late against major financial investment companies such as Citicorp and Bank of america. Both ceded their lending decisions to RaN in 2004.

Their latest target has been J.P. Morgan whose CEO, William Harrison, has been under siege in his home in Greenwich, CT. as Steve Milloy of JunkScience.com has noted, "RaN wants to dictate J.P. Morgan Chase's lending policies for the developing world, especially with regard to energy projects and logging. as an extremist group railing against oil, wood, and meat consumption, RaN wants to block lending to projects it claims may contribute to global warming or involve logging in ‘sensitive' areas."

One of my personal heroes, Niger Innis, the national spokesman for CORE, has said "RaN does not deserve a seat at the table of any bank, and certainly should never been given veto power." He criticized the World Bank, Citigroup, and Bank of america for having "shamefully compromised" their lending policies as the result of RaN's threats. an Ugandan, Diana Koymuhendo, asks, "What right do they have to tell poor people they must settle for whatever crumbs Rainforest action tosses to them?"

Without an investment in the provision of energy in Third World nations, they are going to remain mired in poverty. Nothing happens in this world until you flip a switch and a light turns out, a water pump starts up, or anything else we associate with the modern world begins to function. Life without electricity condemns people to a life of poverty, disease, and premature death.

Would you believe that, worldwide, two billion people still have no electricity? If RaN manages to intimidate J.P. Morgan, that condition will continue because it will elect not to support the changes needed to truly create a global economy. With other banks having already caved in to these outrageous demands, poor Third World countries will have nowhere to turn for financing. Which, of course, is RaN's agenda; for them they will all remain traditional, indigenous, and impoverished, requiring few if the Earth's "finite" resources, and keeping their populations in check through disease, malnutrition, and starvation.

That means 800 million people will be chronically undernourished with 14 million africans facing starvation in southern africa alone. More than 230 million children will continue to suffer from Vitamin a Deficiency and a half million of them go blind every year. Two million will continue to die from problems directly related to VaD.

None of this is necessary. Modern biotechnology can save lives while preserving wildlife and habitats. It would let farms grow more food on less land, but RaN and other Greens declared war on biotechnology years ago. They cry out that it requires widespread use of pesticides, but that is just another Green lie. Biotech crops can withstand insects and viruses without heavy use of pesticides. Some crops have been created to grow better in saline and nutrient-poor soils. Others can thrive despite severe droughts. Meanwhile, RaN and its allies spend $35 million a year battling the introduction of biotech crops.

RaN is among those Green groups that lobbied to get the United Nations to ban the use of DDT to protect people against malaria. It infects an estimated 400,000,000 people a year in africa alone. It kills 2,000,000, half of them children. The loss of revenue to poor african nations is in the billions annually because a third of their workforce is sick much of the time.

There is something obscene to the opposition of Green organizations to anything that would improve the lives of the very least among us, the poor and the starving masses of the Third World, but that is their objective. Their concern is for wildlife or for forests that anyone knows can replenish themselves. Cutting down a tree does not mean another will not grow in its place, but not cutting down a tree often leaves people without ground on which to grow crops or an income from that tree when sold as lumber.

From the rainforests of South america to the parched lands of sub-Saharan africa, RaN is plotting ways to insure that people, no different from you or I, remain trapped in poverty, lack of adequate food, a constant threat of disease, and the specter of death by age 35–if they make it past infancy. That is what the modern, perverse vision of environmentalism is really all about.

as this is being written, we are waiting to see of J.P. Morgan will cave into RaN as other major investment institution already have. One can only hope they will resist the siren call of death in RaN's message.