Kyoto Treaty Holds Scary Prospects
The debate over the Kyoto Treaty on global warming continues, most recently during the G-S discussions on global environment and the Kyoto Protocol in Italy.
It is a bad treaty, based ultimately on the flawed assumption that every baby born into the world is a future threat to the environment.
America’s current prosperity is the result of hard — working entrepreneurs, growing markets, and healthy population growth. The view that a growing population threatens the environment is not only wrong, it is dangerous to our continued prosperity.
Pundits and activists can moan all they want that the US, with 5 percent of the world’s population, produces about a quarter of its carbon dioxide emissions.
What they fail to mention is that, over the last few decades, America’s carbon dioxide emissions have steadily declined. And thanks to new, made-in-America technologies, emissions will continue to drop.
They also neglect to report that America’s growing forests absorb more carbon dioxide than we are currently emitting, making our continent a net carbon sink.
And don’t they know that America produces about a quarter of the world’s goods and services.
The Kyoto Treaty is ultimately not about whether Americans are going to be able to continue to drive their SUVs, but about whether or not billions of people in the developing world are going to be condemned to suffer continued poverty, malnutrition, and disease.
So why do European leaders continue to peddle the protocol? Their countries are home to large Green parties, the members of which worship creation, rather than the Creator.
The Greens would be happy to send the world’s most prosperous nation into the same downward spiral as dying Europe — crippled by anemic birthrates and economic stagnation.
And remember this: Not one of the European Union countries whose leaders are hectoring Mr. Bush ever ratified Kyoto.
Global sanctions based on questionable theories undercut the prosperity of every American. The Kyoto Treaty should send cold shivers down the spine of every reasonable person.
Bishops say No to Condoms
Despite enormous pressure to change their position, the Catholic bishops of southern Africa recently reaffirmed their opposition to condoms as the solution to the AIDS crisis, calling them “immoral and dangerous.” At a meeting of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference held recently in Johannesburg, South Africa, the bishops issued a statement asserting that, “condoms may even be one of the main reasons for the spread of HIV-AIDS. Apart from the possibility of condoms being faulty or wrongly used they contribute to the breaking down of self-control and mutual trust.” The solution to the AIDS crisis is abstinence until marriage and faithfulness to one’s spouse in marriage.
The Catholic bishops are not the only ones to realize the connection between condom promotion and the continued spread of AIDS. Dr. Albu van Eeden, CEO of Doctors for Life, an organization of 700 doctors in South Africa, stated “there has to be a change in lifestyle behavior. Just distributing condoms has no effect.… Society as a whole has to change its value system.”
The National Association of People Living With AIDS, among others, continues to promote condoms as a way to “scale down the rate of the epidemic? But it is evident that this “solution” has been ineffective. Despite years of condom promotion, there are five million people living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa alone. This is more than any other country in the world. In nearby Botswana, more than one-third of adults are HIV-positive. Following the Catholic bishop’s recommendations would save many lives.
(“African bishops slam condom use,” Reuters, 30 July 2001 quoted in LifeSite Daily News, 31 July 2001)
Kenyan and AIDS
Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi has recently added his voice to those calling for abstinence to curb the spread of AIDS. President Moi “appealed to Kenyans to abstain for two years from promiscuous sexual relations to ‘save a generation’ from being contaminated with AIDS.” This statement was made after an announcement that the Kenyan government will import 300 million condoms to Kenya. Moi stated that, “I feel embarrassed by the need to have to spend millions to import condoms, which could easily be avoided by those who are going to use them.”
Currently 2.2 million people, in this country of 30 million, are infected with AIDS. (“President Urges Chastity,” Zenit, 13 July 2001)
