Subject: Ugandan activist: Restricting African development is 'immoral' - 'Gore uses more electricity in a week than 28 million Ugandans together use in a year' |
From: "Marc Morano-ClimateDepot.com" |
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:39:13 -0400 |
To: "'Marc Morano-ClimateDepot.com'" |
[By
Fiona Kobusingye, a coordinator of Congress of Racial Equality Uganda and the
Kill Malarial Mosquitoes Now Brigade.]
Excerpt:
The average African life span is lower than it was in the United
States and Europe 100 years ago. But Africans are being told we shouldn’t
develop, or have electricity or cars because, now that those countries are rich
beyond anything Africans can imagine, they’re worried about global
warming. Al Gore and UN climate boss Yvo de Boer tell us the world needs to
go on an energy diet. Well, I have news for them. Africans are already on an
energy diet. We’re starving! Al Gore uses more electricity in a week than
28 million Ugandans together use in a year. And those anti-electricity policies
are keeping us impoverished. […] Not having electricity also means
disease and death. It means millions die from lung infections, because they
have to cook and heat with open fires; from intestinal diseases caused by
spoiled food and unsafe drinking water; from malaria, TB, cholera, measles and
other diseases that we could prevent or treat if we had proper medical
facilities. Hypothetical global warming a hundred years from now is worse than
this? Telling Africans they can’t have electricity and economic
development – except what can be produced with some wind turbines or
little solar panels – is immoral. It is a crime against humanity.
Africa’s real climate crisis
Fiona Kobusingye
Life in Africa is often nasty, impoverished and short.
AIDS kills 2.2 million Africans every year according t o WHO (World Health
Organization) reports. Lung infections cause 1.4 million deaths, malaria 1
million more, intestinal diseases 700,000. Diseases that could be prevented
with simple vaccines kill an additional 600,000 annually, while war,
malnutrition and life in filthy slums send countless more parents and
children to early graves. And yet, day after day, Africans are told the biggest
threat we face is – global warming. Conferences, news stories, television programs, class
lectures and one-sided “dialogues” repeat the claim endlessly.
We’re told using oil and petrol, even burning wood and charcoal, will
dangerously overheat our planet, melt ice caps, flood coastal cities, and
cause storms, droughts, disease and extinctions. Over 700 climate scientists and 31,000 other scientists
say humans and carbon dioxide have minimal effects on Earth’s
temperature and climate, and there is no global warming crisis. But their
views and studies are never invited or even tolerated in these “climate
crisis” forums, especially at “ministerial dialogues”
staged with United Nations money. Al Gore refuses to debate any of these
experts, or even permit questions that he hasn’t approved ahead of
time. Instead, Africans are told climate change “threatens
humanity more than HIV/AIDS.” More than 2.2 million dead Africans every
year? We are warned that it would be “nearly impossible to
adapt to the loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet,” which would raise
sea levels by “5 to 15 meters.” That certainly would impact our
coastal communities. But how likely is it? The average annual temperature in Antarctica is minus 50
degrees F! Summer in its Western Peninsula barely lasts two months and gets
maybe 10 degrees above freezing for just a few hours a day. Not even Mr. Gore
or UN computer models talk about raising Antarctic temperatures by 85 degrees
F year-round. So how is that ice supposed to melt? Let’s not forget that sea levels have risen 120
meters since the last Ice Age ended. Do the global warming alarmists think
cave men fires caused that? Obviously, powerful natural forces caused those
ancient glaciers to come and go – and caused the droughts, floods and
climate changes that have affected Africa, the Earth and its animals and
people for millions of years. Just consider northern Africa, where green river valleys,
hippopotami and happy villages suddenly got turned into the Sahara Desert
4,000 years ago. Scientists don’t know why, but it probably
wasn’t Egyptian pharaohs building pyramids and driving chariots. However, the real problem isn’t questionable or fake
science, hysterical claims and worthless computer models that predict global
warming disasters. It’s that they’re being used to justify
telling Africans that we shouldn’t build coal or natural gas electrical
power plants. It’s the almost total absence of electricity keeping us
from creating jobs and becoming modern societies. It’s that these
policies KILL. The average African life span is lower than it was in the
United States and Europe 100 years ago. But Africans are being told we
shouldn’t develop, or have electricity or cars because, now that those
countries are rich beyond anything Africans can imagine, they’re worried
about global warming. Al Gore and UN climate boss Yvo de Boer tell us the world
needs to go on an energy diet. Well, I have news for them. Africans are
already on an energy diet. We’re starving! Al Gore uses more electricity in a week than 28 million
Ugandans together use in a year. And those anti-electricity policies are
keeping us impoverished. Not having electricity means millions of Africans
don’t have refrigerators to preserve food and medicine. Outside of
wealthy parts of our big cities, people don’t have lights, computers,
modern hospitals and schools, air conditioning – or offices, factories
and shops to make things and create good jobs. Not having electricity also means disease and death. It
means millions die from lung infections, because they have to cook and heat
with open fires; from intestinal diseases caused by spoiled food and unsafe
drinking water; from malaria, TB, cholera, measles and other diseases that we
could prevent or treat if we had proper medical facilities. Hypothetical global warming a hundred years from now is
worse than this? Telling Africans they can’t have electricity and
economic development – except what can be produced with some wind
turbines or little solar panels – is immoral. It is a crime against
humanity. Meanwhile, China and India are building new coal-fired
power plants every week, so that they can lift their people out of poverty.
So even if Africa remains impoverished – and the US and Europe switched
to windmills and nuclear power – global carbon dioxide levels would
continue increasing for decades. Even worse, the global warming crusaders don’t stop
at telling us we can’t have electricity. They also campaign against
biotechnology. As American, Brazilian and South African farmers will tell
you, biotech seeds increase crop yields, reduce pesticide use, feed more
people and help farmers earn more money. New varieties are being developed
that can resist droughts – the kind Africa has always experienced, and
the ones some claim will increase due to global warming. Environmental radicals even oppose insecticides and the
powerful spatial insect repellant DDT, which Uganda’s Health Ministry
is using along with bed nets and modern ACT drugs to eliminate malaria. They
claim global warming will make malaria worse. That’s ridiculous,
because the20disease was once found all over Europe, the United States and
even Siberia. Uganda and Africa need to stop worrying about what the
West, the UN and Al Gore say. We need to focus on our own needs, resources
and opportunities. We don’t need more aid – especially the kind
that goes mostly to corrupt officials who put the money in private bank
accounts, hold global warming propaganda conferences and keep their own
people poor. We don’t need rich countries promising climate change
assistance (maybe, sometime, ten years from now), if we promise not to
develop. We need to stop acting like ignorant savages, who thought
solar eclipses meant the gods were angry with them, and asked witch doctors
to bring the sun back. We need to stop listening to global warming witch
doctors, who get rich telling us to keep living “indigenous,”
impoverished lives. We need trade, manufacturing, electricity and
transportation fuels to power modern industrial economies. We need to do what
China and India are doing – develop – and trade more with them. That is how we will get the jobs, prosperity, health and
environmental quality we deserve. |
Fiona
Kobusingye is coordinator of Congress of Racial Equality Uganda and the Kill
Malarial Mosquitoes Now Brigade.