Bush Blocks Bid To Save Millions Of Lives (Barf)

Independent (UK) ^

[blam]

Bush blocks bid to save millions of lives

By Geoffrey Lean Environment Editor
02 June 2002

European governments have long suspected it. Environmentalists have long proclaimed it. But now there is clear evidence that President George Bush's environmental policy is indeed a load of crap.

For the United States is blocking an international plan to halve the number of people, two-fifths of the population of the planet, who have no sanitation. Some 2.4 billion people lack even a bucket for their wastes, and this is one of the main causes of world disease.

European and developing nations, meeting in Bali, Indonesia, want the world's leaders to agree to meet this target by 2015. They are proposing that the plan be put in front of the leaders when they meet for a new "Earth Summit" in Johannesburg in August.

The summit – officially called the World Summit for Sustainable Development – is to concentrate on the environmental problems faced by the world's poorest people. The Bali meeting, which is the final preparatory conference for the summit, is running into trouble, with the Bush administration, in the words of one top Whitehall source, being "very, very negative".

More than 2.2 million people – mainly children – die in the Third World every year from diseases caused by lack of sanitation and by dirty drinking water. The United Nations says that "the incidence of some illnesses and death could drop by as much as 75 per cent" if adequate clean water and sanitation were provided.

Margaret Beckett, the Secretary of State for the Environment, who is leading Britain's delegation to Bali, describes dealing with this issue as "absolutely key to any prospect of tackling poverty".

The US position is baffling the other countries at the conference because the Bush administration has already agreed a target of halving the number of people without clean drinking water by the same date – and this is seen as inseparable from solving the problem of sanitation. The British officials held a special meeting with the American delegation on Thursday, but did not receive any clear reason for their objection to the plan.

The clash over sanitation is only one of a range of issues holding up an agreement on a plan of action to present to the summit. Opec countries are opposing a plan – originating from an initiative by Tony Blair – to halve the number of people, currently two billion, without any modern sources of energy, mainly by tapping into renewable sources. And the US, Canada, Japan and Australia are objecting to European proposals to make energy consumption in developed countries more environmentally friendly.

Senior British ministers fear that if the Bali conference fails to reach agreement it will be hard for the Johannesburg summit to succeed – and the best chance of tackling world poverty in two decades will be lost for the indefinite future.

[section9]

Well well well, you guys forgot to remember where this pantload came from.

This came from The Independent, one of Englands more highbrow brownshirt dalies. You know, the same rag that gave us Robert Fisk and the Jenin "massacre"? The same Jew-baiting, sieg-heiling, Pallie-lovin' fishwrapper that presumes that if it ain't a Zionist conspiracy, well, it sure oughtta be?

Wise up, folks! After all, you can buy the poor buckets, or you can turn the page.

(....sound of pages turning....)

God! You Freepers are heartless!

Here, let's all collect a bucket for the wastrels over at DU! That'll make everyone feel better. Gotta have a place for the waste, dontchaknow!

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[IronJack]

Here, let's all collect a bucket for the wastrels over at DU! That'll make everyone feel better. Gotta have a place for the waste, dontchaknow!

I thought that's what DU IS ...

[boris]

I am not sure how many human beings have lived since the race began. I wonder what fraction of all the humans who have ever lived had indoor plumbing?

And yet we seem to have been enormously successful, as a species.

Hmm.

--Boris

[Blood of Tyrants]

You must realize that what they mean by "blocking" is we won't fork over the money so that dictators like Mgumby in Zimbabwe can steal it.

[blam]

"I am not sure how many human beings have lived since the race began. "

Six billion, about the same as are alive today.

[RippleFire]

UN_List: for United Nations articles. 

Other Bump Lists at: Free Republic Bump List Register

Don't forget:

• World Food Summit in Rome, June 10-13

• World Summit on Sustainable Development
  in Johannesburg, Aug. 26 - Sept. 4

[boris]

"Six billion, about the same as are alive today."

I am surprised. I was thinking ~20 billion. Can you provide a source?

BTW, do you know the so-called "DA" (Doomsday Argument)?

--Boris

[cajun-jack]

i'm not smart enough to find it or link to it, but if memory serves correctly, just the other day, i believe there was a thread on here regarding "sustained development" or it may have been on talk radio...it was one of klintoon's and the u.n.'s projects.

[blam]

"I am surprised. I was thinking ~20 billion. Can you provide a source?"

Nah. It was widely reported last year when the world's population topped 6 billion for the first time. When the super-volcano Toba blew 70-75,000 years ago, some say that only 5,000 humans worldwide survived. Hence, the DNA 'bottleneck.' So....

"BTW, do you know the so-called "DA" (Doomsday Argument)?"

Nope.

[DrDavid]

Give a man a bucket and he can ... for a day.

Teach a man to make a toilet and septic tank and he can ... for a lifetime!

[shadowman99]

" By Geoffrey Lean Environment Editor"

Name another publication with an Environment Editor

There was zero chance of Bush making this wanker happy.

[Jorge]

If it's so urgent, why don't they pay for it?
What a bunch of pathetic hypocrits.

[Richard Axtell]

Uh, this story is simply crap. No explanation of how Bush is blocking anything, no proof that such a plan exists or would be anything more than a waste of money, like everything the "World Summit" has done on a global scale. By the way, what has the "World Summit" done on a global scale? Fraud? Yeah, that makes sense.

[ZOOKER]

It's obviously our fault.

If we didn't send them all that free food, they wouldn't have a sanitation problem.

Cut the food aid to zero, and the problem will be solved in a year or two.

[philetus]

"If it's so urgent, why don't they pay for it? What a bunch of pathetic hypocrits."

Exactly what I just told Geoffrey Lean in a email.
Feel free to tell him again and again

His paper here

[philetus]

Geoffrey Lean

[meenie]

The Porta-potty people have to be beind the lobbying for this. Think of the untapped market out there.

[blam]

"If we didn't send them all that free food, they wouldn't have a sanitation problem."

Yup. And you'll get to take care of their kids too!

[listenhillary]

Send them Sky Crappers Pic 1

Send them Sky Crappers Pic 1

Sky crappers made famous locally by the mayor of Lupus Missouri. He sought government money to develop these solar heated, sterilizing composting toilets for use in the Missouri river bottoms. The riverbottom water table is very shallow, which is where most people were getting their water.

It was made more famous when the project received Proxmire's Golden Fleece award.

It actually makes sense to not discharge waste via septic systems into the water field you are drawing your water from. It should not have been funded by government.

The solar heated sterilizing composting toilets have been used in mountainous natural park areas where pumping trucks are not feasible.

Missouri River Rats - We take our S--t Seriously

[listenhillary]

Take the outhouse tour! See American ingenuity at it's finest!