Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to UNICEF, 500 million children will suffer, unless America hands all its money to the UN.
Children will bear the brunt of climate change
Today, over half a billion children live in extremely high ood occurrence zones; nearly 160 million live in high or extremely high drought severity zones. While climate change will ultimately impact every child, these children are already in harm’s way and face some of the most immediate risks.
There is a clear scienti c consensus that climate change will increase the frequency of droughts, oods and severe weather events. These threats will pose grave risks for children over the coming decades. Severe weather events can destroy or disrupt infrastructure critical to children’s well-being, including schools, health facilities and transport. Droughts and ooding can destroy crops, disrupt water systems and contaminate water reserves.
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7. Decisive action on climate change can impact millions of children
The reality is that a major tipping point has already past. IPCC scientists consider that we are already feeling the impacts of climate change, and to some degree they will continue to get worse even if we manage to dramatically decrease greenhouse gas emissions. Nonetheless, action taken now to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change will benefit children at risk from its potentially deadly effects.
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A climate agenda for children
The worst impacts of climate change are not inevitable. There are concrete steps that the world can take now to safeguard our children’s future and their rights:
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3 Reduce inequity among children now to promote their future resilience to climate change.
As with all disasters, the poorest children and families will be the hardest hit by climate change. Fewer social and nancial resources mean that families have a more dif cult time coping with shocks. As climate change makes crises more common, these repeated shocks will make it harder and harder to recover. Without action now, the transmission of poverty and disadvantage across generations will worsen. Reducing these inequities now – providing the poorest children with access to safe water, adequate sanitation and good hygiene; good nutrition and food security; strong and accessible health systems; and well-functioning child and social protection systems – will give disadvantaged children a better basis for coping with the effects of climate change in the future. It will also make it less likely that today’s inequities are exacerbated by climate change.
Read more: http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/Unless_we_act_now_The_impact_of_climate_change_on_children.pdf
Nobody wants to see children suffer, but the biggest impediment to child welfare is not climate change, or drought, or floods. The biggest problem in poor countries is the corrupt kleptocratic tyrants in charge, who keep stealing everyone’s money.
The Asian Miracle demonstrated that poverty can be fixed in a generation, with the right governance.
But don’t take my word for it. Here is what Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati had to say about well meaning handouts to poor people, in an interview with Der Spiegel.
Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa…
Shikwati: … for God’s sake, please just stop.
SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.
Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.
SPIEGEL: Do you have an explanation for this paradox?
Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa’s problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn’t even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.
Read more http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/spiegel-interview-with-african-economics-expert-for-god-s-sake-please-stop-the-aid-a-363663.html
Even if we accept the alleged problems of climate change, if poverty makes people vulnerable, the simplest solution is surely to eliminate the poverty, not to join them in their misery.
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“extremely high ood occurrence zones “?????
Like a chupacabra.
Yes, oods are much more serious than (fl)oods…and it’s all our fault AND worse than we thought!
[And oodles and oodles of French-cut dogs creates a floodle of poodles to walk around. .mod]
Some kind of complicated typo: the combinations “fl” and “fi” are missing throughout this post.
That’s called a ligature, where the font has special characters for a word processor to substitute when it comes across the fi and fl combinations. WordPress apparently doesn’t recognize these characters, and ignores them.
ft, ffi, ffl, fj, can be ligatures. Even the ampersand, &, is a ligature of et.
That’s called a ligature, where the font has special characters that a word processor substitutes for combinations like ft, ffi, ffl, fj, and ae. WordPress doesn’t seem to recognize these characters, and ignores them. Even the ampersand, &, is a ligature of et.
“There is a clear scienti c consensus ” ???
I think your keyboard needs cleaning !!! LOL…sorry…
500,000,000. Nice round number, eh? Not 488,352,147 or 563,231,817. Seventy five years ago, when I was in grade school, the teachers used to pass around a small tin into which were encouraged to deposit a dime to help the poor, starving children in Africa. It didn’t work then, and it still isn’t working. What’s the definition of insanity? Repeating the same action and expecting a different outcome?
Actually, our Government recognizes the fact that giving away goods results in dependency. Notice all the signs in areas bordering wilderness parks: “Do Not Feed the Animals”, frequently with the explanation.
Then we retreat to the city where we feed, house, and attempt to educate the “needy”. We make it very comfortable for them to continue in their ways. We totally disincentivize their children to get an education. We’ve given a lot of money to educate children in Central America, only to see them stay in second grade for five years – and more. Ah, but at least they are more nicely dressed. Still uneducated, but nicely dressed, and well fed. Why work?
Shikwati is exactly right !!! The democrats do the same to African Americans too !!! They like perpetual crisis !!
Make third world government leaders rich I would say.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.wordpress.com
I once heard of a minister who paid an unsanctioned visit to his denominations missions.
The antibiotics and vitamins being sent over were intercepted and fed to the leaders’ livestock.
Save the children is an actual logical fallacy. It is used only to evoke sympathy in the face of poor factual information.
US public school Educators are some of the worst of the lot with their plea of ……. “Give us more money, more money, more money, …. its for the children ya know”.
As a retired teacher in the US public schools, I whole-heartedly concur.
Jeff you are so correct in this. Any society, no matter how disadvantaged will save its own children (its future) first and foremost. In doing so it will thus save itself as a byproduct.
Yet more ‘victims’ at the forefront of climate change. Amazing!
It’s worse than we thought for the children?
Maybe it’s the children that are Worse Than We Thought?
Aid has been sent to Africa for a very long time. If any country in Africa was like S. Korea or Japan , it would be the most advanced nation on earth.
A warmer world is a wetter world. Pray for MORE CO2.
fredberp,
I do not want a colder world.
One lousy degree C – if warmer; ‘Yes please!’
Auto in a London winter . . . . . . . . .
Thanks, Eric
The interview is another example of the chasm between popular conceptions and actual reality.
How many children will be victims of the fight of climate change?
They need to reduce population as a part of the UN agenda, isn’t climate change as convenient an excuse as any?
How about we let the private sector develop the third world? I can’t think of much of anything the private sector doesn’t do better than the government, it is much more highly motivated to make the system work properly.
To some extent China is already doing this – they’re investing in Africa, building mines and roads to service the mines.
I haven’t donated a penny to international charities since I read the Shikwati interview a few years ago.
In the Pacific Northwest we just wish all those “climate refugees” from California had never shown up. They’ve made Oregon and Washington into political suburbs of California!
Now, that’s scary.
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/aliens/images/7/72/Ood.jpg
😎
Just Who are the Drs of “Climate Science”?
By their projections and “prejections” they do seem to think they can time-travel.
How else can they be so sure of the unknown?
I’ve always thought of the ood as a BBC scriptwriter’s idea of a symbolic standin for working class people down the pub. Those things in their hands are pints of beer. Take away their beer and replace it with something else, and they get angry…
🙂
Maybe they wouldn’t get mad if someone gave them a Kleenex instead? 😎
Officer of the day.
Seriously. A whole ahitload more children starved to death each year BEFORE Global Warming. Do the research.
More Appeal to Emotion garbage from the climate campaigners. “Think of the children”!
We are. You’re not.
Who can blame the somolians for hating the US? Food aid killed the market bamkrupting local farmers. As soon as the aid stopped there was noone left to grow food. How is the end result any different than simply shooting the people outright aka Paris?
The US intent in giving aid is noble, but everyone assume Newtons third law somehow doesn’t apply to them.
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The law of unintended consequences. To help one person you must hurt someone else. Ask first who you are hurting.
For a few to win, many must lose.
Economics isn’t a zero sum game…
Hey, for access to clean water the U.N. should buy a couple thousand RC4 drill rigs, highly portable, easy to operate, made in China, but they work. Maybe that makes too much sense for the U.N. And remind eveyone to build their outhouses down-slope from the well.
How about send in some sales people, so poor people can save up and buy the rigs themselves? That way, with their own skin in the game, they might take care of the equipment, and take the whole exercise seriously.
When an extensive water drilling program was done in Bangladesh a decade or two ago many locals suffered severy from arsenic poisoning for many years after. It was a large program with little follow up.
Self determination is the name of the game.
The classic “think of the children” logical fallacy. The eco-zealots in my state resorted to it to try to ban fracking; it didn’t work. So they shifted their expensive commercials tactic to decry the evils of money in business. One of these days, I’m going to send these liars an email asking them how their conscience lets them sleep at night. If I was as dishonest as these jokers, I would be a wreck.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
Alex, about the sleep thing, now you know why the Pharmas do so well with their nighty nighty pills.
Parents are responsible for children. Not the UN. Though the UN would like to be.
It’s all about the children…it’s all for the children!!! How could anyone be against it?!?
Maybe they’ve mixed a bit of thought in with their emotional desire to help?
Next it’ll be “Jerry’s kids”.
Your UN dues at work. Nuts!
When a union becomes a detriment to its members, it becomes an encumbrance upon them.
Perhaps with government seeking to abolish labor unionism within its ranks, it would be appropriate to examine the merits of withdrawal from governmental unionism.
I live in the US. I have a government job. I’m represented by a labor union. No choice. (I don’t live in a Right to Work state.) I never joined the union yet I still have to pay them a “fairshare” dues. It’s the same amount of regular dues but I can object to them using the percentage they spend on politics and have that “fairshare” reduced by that percentage. I have to object every year. This year a bit over 45% of the dues are spent on politics.
I can’t vote on our contracts (the 55% I pay for). I’d have to join the union to be able to vote on contracts or leadership of the union. But then that 45% would be used to support a political agenda.
(Did I mention I have a government job?)
Some government officials are not out to abolish their cash cow.
(I know some members who wouldn’t vote for the the politicians the union give to if they ran unopposed.)
If they stopped using corn and other crops for biofuels, the world’s children would have a much better prospect.
If they stopped wasting massive amounts of money on useless wind turbines and solar they could do far more to help supply essentials like clean water, electricity and sanitation to poor countries.
If they stopped in their stupid attempt to limit plant food gas, the world’s food supply would increase even quicker.
EVERYTHING that the AGW cult does is FAR MORE damaging to the prospects of future children than actual economic and industrial development has ever been.
Very true. Thank you for the post.
I do want to say though. In many of the poor parts of Africa, wind and solar really may be the best short term solution for local power. Much cheaper and faster to put in a wind turbine at each village to power their water pump than to build all the infrastructure throughout the country to bring power to each village.
A hand crank works much better.
All you need is muscle power, not an unreliable wind / solar supply.
@Felflames, if all they villagers wanted was a water pump then you might be right, but would you want to hand crank every time you wanted to use the radio? Or to power a refrigerator for medical supplies?
I know wind and solar can be unreliable, but especially solar in much of Africa is pretty reliable and can be backed up with batteries.
There is a reason you see old wind turbines on ranches all over the western US, at the time they were built they were better than nothing.