If you've posted in forums you might remember writing some decent responses. I usually spend a lot of time polishing my discussion forum responses depending on the subject or who I am talking to. Often I want to remember what I said about something, but finding the original post can be difficult. So it makes sense to capture the better responses for later review. Welcome to Clint's Reposts.Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Oil is humanitarian
Ben wrote in http://www.network54.com/Forum/79106/message/1142967280/Man%2C+we+have+Straw+men+all+over+this+board.....:
"According to UNICEF, 30,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they 'die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.'"
That is, they die to lack of food, lack of basic necessities, and die of preventable diseases. If we were to move just 1% of what we spend on our defense budget, just imagine the good works we could do for these children.
Again, humanitarianism is only an issue, or so it seems, when abundant oil is under the soil.
Not to be cold about it, but it was oil that gave rise to the population of now dying children in the first place.
Fossil fuels made possible the rapid growth of population as transportation cost were reduced and human productivity increased greatly.
From: http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/pop_socio/pop_socio.html
As you can see from the charts on this webpage human population has increased exponentially in the recent past. Oil was, and is, in a sense extremely humanitarian in that it lifted scores of countries out of absolute poverty and short life spans so that many more children could survive overall. Unfortunately the huge increase in birthrates left much larger populations of children exposed to the usual world problems: lack of sanitation, unstable governments, etc.
One could argue that by obsessively going after oil we are doing more for child good works than 1% of redirected defense spending could even come close to matching, not that redirecting that money would be a bad thing. I applaud your humanitaran instincts but throwing money at the poverty problem only delays the inevitable unless world attitudes and behaviors change. Until we stop fighting each other learn to work together, there will always be children dying of poverty. I'm not holding my breath on the working together concept. Nature (at least the nature we see on planet earth) is red in tooth and claw, meaning that no one is really at fault here. The universe has its own purpose and it appears 30,000 children dying each day due to poverty is part of it, as is a 100% defense budget.
--C
"According to UNICEF, 30,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they 'die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.'"
That is, they die to lack of food, lack of basic necessities, and die of preventable diseases. If we were to move just 1% of what we spend on our defense budget, just imagine the good works we could do for these children.
Again, humanitarianism is only an issue, or so it seems, when abundant oil is under the soil.
Not to be cold about it, but it was oil that gave rise to the population of now dying children in the first place.
Fossil fuels made possible the rapid growth of population as transportation cost were reduced and human productivity increased greatly.
From: http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/pop_socio/pop_socio.html
As you can see from the charts on this webpage human population has increased exponentially in the recent past. Oil was, and is, in a sense extremely humanitarian in that it lifted scores of countries out of absolute poverty and short life spans so that many more children could survive overall. Unfortunately the huge increase in birthrates left much larger populations of children exposed to the usual world problems: lack of sanitation, unstable governments, etc.
One could argue that by obsessively going after oil we are doing more for child good works than 1% of redirected defense spending could even come close to matching, not that redirecting that money would be a bad thing. I applaud your humanitaran instincts but throwing money at the poverty problem only delays the inevitable unless world attitudes and behaviors change. Until we stop fighting each other learn to work together, there will always be children dying of poverty. I'm not holding my breath on the working together concept. Nature (at least the nature we see on planet earth) is red in tooth and claw, meaning that no one is really at fault here. The universe has its own purpose and it appears 30,000 children dying each day due to poverty is part of it, as is a 100% defense budget.
--C
