Feed the Children vs Global Warming

Some people only think they are smart, like the author of this article, found on Fox News no less, and end up regaling the rest of us with their two cent drug store wisdom to the detriment of our collective intellect. It behooves one to learn the meaning of the word Meme, folks. The cost is far more than two cents though, if we do not employ critical thinking to discern truth from hyperbole and platitude.

To wit, the case here in point. My Dad thought this was plain and simply full of wisdom. He and I being on the opposite side of the Global Warming debate.

Warming Concerns

Thursday, February 22, 2007

By Steven Milloy

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” said famed 18th century British lexicographer Samuel Johnson. To update the quote for our current era you might substitute “children” for “patriotism” and “climate alarmist” for “scoundrel.”

Last week, outgoing United Nations World Food Program chief James Morris reminded us that 18,000 children die every day from hunger and malnutrition. Morris called the situation “a terrible indictment of the world in 2007.”

In contrast to our quixotic fixation with trying to fine-tune global climate by tweaking atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, the ongoing tragedy of starving children would seem to be a relatively easy problem to solve. After all, wealthy developed nations have plenty of surplus food and the wherewithal to deliver it to the world’s malnourished.

As usual find the rest of this glorious piece of shi.. er wisdom here.

Soooo, hmmm, we feed the starving children then Global Warming catches up because we neglected it for the starving children's sake and still kills them in various hideous ways. Yeah, good plan!

NOT!

Look, I'll give them their precious "Natural Cycle Only" bit for sake of argument. The issue still is we have dumped 30% more CO2 into the atmosphere than would be there without our addiction to fossil fuels. It HAS TO have an effect. Experiments, that we may repeat until we are blue in the face show over and over again that CO2 disallows the sun's radiation escaping back into space thus holding in more heat. This happens the same way the glazing on a hot house holds in warmth, hence the name "greenhouse gases".

Ok, the opposition says it's just a natural cycle, let us keep mainlining oil and coal, etc., we love it all so.... Nah, you see there are serious consequences to allowing the warming regardless of how little or great our addition to the problem. The fact is the planet is warming. I won't go over yet again the consequences, there is plenty of material out there for that. The issue is 'how many', not 'if or whether any', lives will be lost because of it. This mentions nothing of the financial losses.

I say one life lost is morally too many but that is of course and sadly not practical.

We blithely allow thousands per year to die in auto accidents, from diseases that could be cured if real concerted effort were put into it, aging alone kills 100k per day and yes the poor dear starving children die in the thousands per year. Oh yes I am getting to them. But what I am first getting to here is at what point is a few thousand suddenly a few million and is that enough to now pay attention?

Global Warming could easily kill a billion and more at it's worst and at least millions at the mildest. Now our friend from the article alludes we should let that slide and feed the snotty nosed faces of the world instead. My first inclination is to say, why split hairs? Why the choice either/or? Why not take care of both? If we just had the will we could find the way. I have a caveat that I will get to though for the little hungry brats. Oh but don't think I do not love them all, but it is tough love baby!

But first back to what should we do about the so called natural cycles. Does "natural" make them sacrosanct? Does it mean we shouldn't meddle? Of course not! We at the very least should remove our 30% addition to the problem, then argue about natural or not and should we then still sit by and let bad things happen to good people, all the people of Earth!

Oh but there's those starving children that we now let bad things happen to anyway, right? Well some of us. Then there's those that make a big noise and pull at your hearts strings on late night TV to help feed these lovely street urchins. Why are they always so damn cute, not an ugly one in the bunch?

Ok, this will sound heartless but I never will send a penny to any of the feed the children funds.

Why? Because it is tantamount to child abuse! You heard me.

Those starving children are starving for political reasons that most voters will not recognize and those that do and could change it won't lift a finger to. Most starving children are of course third or developing world. Well what do most all of those countries have in common? Answer: backwards customs that relish fertility and/or macho male virility attitudes plus religious superstition against contraception. Men there are often by custom proven more viral and macho by fathering more children including illegitimate ones. Women have little to zero rights or control over their own bodies. They often are virtual slaves if not slaves outright. They are sometimes treated little better in life than baby factories beasts of burden and play toys, traded, sold, bartered, abducted into slavery and worse.

Then you have the Catholic Church, usually prominent in many of these countries, that sticks their nose in the personal fertility business of these people telling them GAWD doesn't like contraception. The real reason the church is so concerned about this is it gets more power in having more numbers under their banner of belief regardless how impoverished it forces the poor people to stay so because they have more mouths to feed than they can afford.

Then you have our right wingers here in the good ole meddlesome USA that mistakenly believe that Planned Parenthood is about teaching abortion to these poor folks when in actuality contraception methods and women's rights are really the message. Oh but we can't have any of those women's rights bandied about when the bible says such demeaning things about women, can we now? Gotta keep them under thumb for Jesus sake! So they toeing the line with their blind religious leaders unthinking all the way support those that do their worst in Washington to remove any avenue Planned Parent Hood and like organizations have to go into these countries and really make a difference. For folk sake! The preznitwit's constituents don't even want condom use taught in Africa where people are dying by the droves of AIDS passed on by unprotected sex. Starving children? How about starving and born with AIDS?!

Mr. Patriot made a straw man argument but I see straight through it thank you very much. Now why is our sending food aid to these children the same as child abuse? Because, firstly they rarely get any of the aid to begin with. If they do it only means they get to live long enough to repeat the errors of their parents and also have too many children than they can feed passing their starvation circumstances right on to their children and so on.

We do not drop food willy nilly in the wild forest to feed wild animals because with that added unearned extra energy infused into the system they will breed out of control and soon have too many numbers than their local environment can support. I know how that sounds. It sounds clinical and overly scienced but like it or not humans are animals too. But we aren't held by "natural" yearly cycles for estrous. We can breed any damn ole time we please.

What those poor starving children need most is basic human rights and real education. Their mothers and the young girls growing up need the respect they deserve as equals, control over their own bodies and fertility and the right to say no and not have children they don't want or cannot support. Likewise the men need to learn that real men father only those children they can support and not leave it to the women they've abused to on their own handle them and surely not expect other nations to pick up the tab for their excesses!

Education is key but it is not just the third world in need of it.

We already know that as countries become more affluent, educated and democratic their population rates of birth plummet. However, many of our right wing friends have little to no interest in helping Global Warming or the starving children in any truly meaningful ways because after all this world is about to end right? Why make an effort when you expect to be spirited away in the Rapture any day now, hallelujah brothers and sisters can I get an AMEN!? Just make a pile of money to stay comfortable and support your pet political projects such as oh maybe supporting anything Israel does so they get the right to rebuild their temple, of course pissing off all of Islamdom and kicking off World War III in the doing... but hey then JESUS can finally return!! Right? Wrong! As if Jesus, if he is really god, needs humans help to set up his alleged return.

Well it's their mad plan not mine. I think a better plan is to plan for the worst and help our brothers and sisters learn how to feed their own children and have the smarts to know when enough is enough.

FutureQ