Posted on 02/02/2008 6:11:32 PM PST by ricks_place
Parallels in reactionary argumentation in the US congressional debates on the abolition of slavery and the Kyoto Protocol
Abstract Today, the United States is as dependent on fossil fuels for its patterns of consumption and production as its South was on slavery in the mid nineteenth century. That US congressmen tend to rationalise fossil fuel use despite climate risks to future generations just as Southern congressmen rationalised slavery despite ideals of equality is perhaps unsurprising, then. This article explores similarities between the rationalisation of slavery in the abolition debates and the rationalisation of ongoing emissions of greenhouse gases in the US congressional debates on the Kyoto Protocol.
1 Introduction
On July 4th, 1776, the 13 United States of America unanimously declared to “hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Despite these ‘self-evident truths,’ slavery was upheld in many states and rationalised in congressional debates for almost another century before it was formally abolished by the US Congress in 1865 (see e.g. Jenkins 1935; Tise 1987; Miller 1996). OnJune 12th, 1992, the United States signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in which the Parties stated their determination “to protect theclimate system for present and future generations.” Despite this commitment, the USCongress has as yet rejected any mandatory regulation of greenhouse gases, including the binding emission targets for the industrialised nations agreed to under the Kyoto Protocol(see e.g. PEW Center on Global Climate Change 2004)...
2 Similarities between slavery and the use of fossil fuels
In this section I argue that the present climate debate shows several fundamental similarities in circumstance with the abolition debate of the mid-nineteenth century.
(Excerpt) Read more at springerlink.com ...
Just in case there was any doubt the ‘intellectual’ left has any rationality left.
Who is the new slave, Gaia (mother earth)?
What a stinking steamy load of bu11sh!t.
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