| Original Message |
Jester (no login)
Posted Jun 5, 2002 5:49 PM
The Kyoto accord hasn't been signed in Canada on the basis that we have regional diversity, and give each area its due respect, even if said area is being a real jerk about it. The federal government has been gunning to ratify Kyoto for quite some time; the opposition has almost totally come from oil interests in Alberta. I should know, I live here.
What, if anything, does that do to good Mr. Tamarin's point? Nothing, as far as I can tell. Why did you mention it? Do you think that Canadians (who believe in vast majority, according to polls, in the Kyoto Accord...) share your opinions just because the gov't hasn't signed the treaty yet?
The other thing that troubles me about your argument is the "global economy" you keep referring to. The world is not a welfare state, or, if it is one, it's a shoddy example. The United States is overwhelmingly the biggest producer. It is equally overwhelmingly,the biggest consumer. How, exactly, does this involve 3rd world (and 2nd world? I thought that was over when the soviet union fell...) nations? It doesn't. The rich nations produce more, and they consume the surplus of their production. This is elementary economics. There is no "money vortex" that occurs somewhere around Somalia, where non-producing nations suddenly do a whole lot of consuming. The US, and the west generally, does not carry the rest of the world on its back, since their wealth stays where it is earned. In fact, it usually works backwards, since the west exploits tremendous reserves of cheap labour and resources in the rest of the world. Aid does a small amount to offset this, but don't even approach negating it.
The 3rd world owes the west nothing for being a large part of the "global economy", since they do not reap the benefits. Does the west owe them anything? Sure. If they're fouling up the water for their own prosperity, they owe them clean water. Same with the air, the atmosphere, the biosphere, or anything else that rightly belongs to humanity in general, but is used only for the profit of the few. |
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