The Dog Ate my Data

I came across an interesting article and quote concerning Desmond Tutu at Copenhagen.

"At a candle light vigil, Tutu almost incoherently squealed:

“If you are responsible for most of the emissions, which are—look—look—look at the ozone layer. People are now suffering from all kinds of skin diseases, because we are thinning the ozone layer. Whoa! Whoa-ho!”

Getting straight to the point, Tutu importuned the wealthy West to fork it over:

“For your own sakes, rich people, please, for your own sakes, for your children’s sakes, for the sake of our world, be nice. Be nice, and pay up. Pay up, please. Please, for your own sake.”

Most prominent among the religious prelates in Copenhagen were Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who solemnly told religious activists at a rally that an unidentified 300,000 people were “dying as a result of the poverty caused by all of the emissions coming from the rich countries.” Lest anyone misunderstand his target, Tutu pleaded: “Hello, rich people. Hello there, hello America.” Tutu did not mention how many hundreds of millions of people are alive and living with greater health and wealth because of Western industry."

Poor Desmond, not only does Desmond seem to be getting his global catastrophies mixed up (global catastrophy due to thinning ozone layer is so last century Des) but massively increasing aid by way of “climate reparations” to the tune of USD100 billion a year (see here), and that’s just for starters, is not the answer. Rewarding murderous and/or inept regimes with billions of dollars for their offshore bank accounts and incestuous business transactions is not a solution. It has never succeeded in the past and it will not succeed in the future.

Transferring wealth from the poor of the west to the rich of the despotic African nations by way of a climate tax will only extend the murderous regimes the people live under.

The problems of Africa have nothing to do with the weather. They have to do with corrupt and murderous African elites siphoning off the wealth of their nations and destroying their economies through either wanton malfeasance or willful incompetence. The biggest single factor in determining life-expectancy in poor nations is the amount of fossil fuels they burn. The more they burn, the more prosperous they become, and the less poverty and early death there is. This is because fossil-fueled electricity is nearly always the cheapest on the market, and is relatively low-tech, and is therefore very suitable for poorer countries that do not have the scientific or technical infrastructure to run nuclear reactors, for instance. Of course the global lunatics of the religious left either do not understand this or do not care about it and continue to support failed and regressive policies and ludicrous notions of a climate tax.

Tutu has become nothing but a global beggar. Sucking on the tit of the west will not secure investment for Africa nor will it sustain its future. Development and capitalism will. Your choice, your consequences Desmond.