Drought in Kenya
The NYT’s Jeffrey Gettleman reports on drought conditions in Kenya:
So much of his green pasture land has turned to dust. His once mighty herd of goats, sheep and camels have died of thirst. He says his 3-year-old son recently died of hunger. And Mr. Lolua does not look to be far from death himself.
“If nobody comes to help us, I will die here, right here,” he said, emphatically patting the earth with a cracked, ancient-looking hand.
The same climate change that’s causing a surge in wildfires in California is also going to give us more droughts, more crop failures, and more famines. Human societies have, over the years, located their farms and population centers based on certain expectations about rainfall patterns. Upsetting those patterns upsets all those human arrangements and leads to starvation and death. Alternatively, as people try to relocate themselves to more viable land we’ll have war and death (and probably starvation too).
The World Food Program says there are four million Kenyans in need of assistance. That’ll cost $576 million but less than half the required amount has been raised. This is the sort of thing that makes it hard for me to take seriously the neoconnish mindset that’s extremely interested in international humanitarian issues if and only if humanitarian problems can allegedly be ameliorated by bombing someone or deploying American troops somewhere. The total bill for saving millions of people from starvation would be tiny compared to any military adventure. And yet the folks eager to wave the banner of “idealism” on behalf of launching wars are going to be nowhere to be found on this issue.
56 Responses to “Drought in Kenya”
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September 8th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Well, it’s not so much that they’re idealistic or care about other people, really, it’s that they think a non-militaristic society will inevitably become soft and decadent, or some such hoo-haw.
September 8th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
The World Food Program says there are four million Kenyans in need of assistance. That’ll cost $576 million but less than half the required amount has been raised.
So for less than 1/1000th of TARP, we could save the lives of four million people? Yea, but we needed that money to make sure nobody loses their fifth home. That would be the real tragedy.
September 8th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
California’s experience with wildfires, and Africa’s (or parts thereof) experience with droughts, long predate the emergence of climate change as an issue. It seems rather blithe to simply attribute these events to climate change.
September 8th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Sorry I only skimmed this: Did you say something about bombing someone?
September 8th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
This is the sort of thing that makes it hard for me to take seriously the neoconnish mindset that’s extremely interested in international humanitarian issues if and only if humanitarian problems can allegedly be ameliorated by bombing someone or deploying American troops somewhere. The total bill for saving millions of people from starvation would be tiny compared to any military adventure. And yet the folks eager to wave the banner of “idealism” on behalf of launching wars are going to be nowhere to be found on this issue.
Bush was actually pretty good about AIDS aid to Africa but you would never know this if you just listened to partisan Democrats who are only interested in Donkeys vs. Elephants. Obama won the Presidency in part by appealing to a new generation with the message that he’d try to get beyond partisan politics.
Was Bush a neocon? Did the neocons control his mind? I don’t know.
As a liberal interventionist or liberal hawk or whatever, I’m against bombing Iran. And after Iraq was absolutely devastated after a decade of sanctions plus Saddam, I’m not sure sanctions are the way to go either. On Burma, Iran, whoever.
I just always go back to John Kerry’s argument during the 2004 campaing that the money spent on Iraq would be better spent on American firemen. Well, following this nativist logic, money spent on starving Kenyans would be better spent on American firemen, b/c they’re American. It’s a zero-sum outlook.
September 8th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
@Mose
Have a look at the size of fires recently
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:California_wildfires_by_size
A disproportionate number have occurred in the last 15 years.
September 8th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
“Upsetting those patterns upsets all those human arrangements and leads to starvation and death.” I know this wasn’t Matt’s main point (his main point is that we should be giving more to international food organizations, which is obviously true), but I want to air a gripe of mine: I think we should be hard headed consequentialists about climate change. Clearly there are costs to climate change, such as those Matt mentions. But do those costs add up the five trillion or so (at the very least) it would cost just to begin to affect the problem of climate change. I mean: imagine that it weren’t Northeast Kenya there were suffering starvation from drought, but rather Phoenix, or Vegas. Surely we wouldn’t say that the problem here is primarily global warming: the problem is that hordes of people are living in desert. The solution: get them out of the desert. Relocation would have heavy costs, admittedly, but would it be MORE costly than an actually effective globally-realized climate change policy? A sincere question, not a rhetorical point.
September 8th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
No – they are going to add up to much, much more than that.
September 8th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Problem: the US can’t just hand out food. The stuff has to go through the right (governmental) channels. The US could of course establish its own channels but that would involve (neocon) military intervention.
September 8th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
The environment is toast. Here’s why:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/08/12/world.population/index.html
September 8th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Slightly off-topic, but if the money we spent on food aid to Africa was used to buy African-grown food instead of buying and shipping American-grown food, we’d get a lot more bang for our buck, and also, do a great deal to advance African economic development in areas that aren’t currently suffering from drought.
September 8th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Tell you what, you come up for a dollar value on the dead three year old, and we can start to try and run some numbers. OK?
September 8th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Steve,
“No – they are going to add up to much, much more than that.”
Does that just seem patently self-evident to you, or are you aware of an actual cost analysis? I have to say that, intuitively, it just seems to me like it would cost us a lot less to adjust to just living with projected global warming–I mean, sure, it’ll be expensive to slowly relocate large populations from the American southwest to the American North and Canadian plains, but we have decades to do so, and I can’t see it costing more than five trillion…..likewise for insuring against the coming floods, fires, severe storms, etc…A final note: from what I’ve read, we have for the past thousand or so years lived in a weirdly temperate time…it’d be odd to insist that these temperatures and climate ought to be the base-line….
September 8th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Both. I don’t think you have even the beginnings of an awareness of the scale of the catastrophes that will result if we go on as at present.
September 8th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Climate Change has pushed the Jet Stream northward. (A predicted change, btw.) With it, aridity and desertification of temperate zones follows.
People who claim we can’t afford 5 trillion to thwart AGW don’t claim we could afford 4 trillion. (Or 3. Or 2. etc)
And I’d like to see the hat where the 5 trillion dollar price tag was pulled from.
September 8th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Michael,
As DaveNYC suggests, it depends on how much money people dying horribly (of starvation, thirst, fire, or flood) works out to. I also would think that rendering large parts of our economy uninhabitable would end up costing us a pretty huge amount of money, if you’re more comfortable with those terms.
September 8th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
daveNYC,
I’m not suggesting that your three year old should die. I’m recommending that s/he move. Your point, obviously, is besides the point.
September 8th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
“I’m not suggesting that your three year old should die. I’m recommending that s/he move.”
Michael, DaveNYC is referring to the actual dead child in the article under discussion, who even when alive didn’t have access to a moving van.
September 8th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
The really scary part of this is Kenya is hardly the problem. When we have to relocate half of Bangladesh, it will be a really big problem. And we can’t just move them East Bengal, because we’ll have to relocate them, too. Anyone have room for an extra 100 million people? Didn’t think so. And that’s not even counting the problems in Southeast Asia when the Mekong’s flow gets interrupted. Or the problems that will occur when India and Pakistan start fighting over the dwindling Himalayan glaciers. Hmm, starving people with nuclear weapons. Sound like a good combination to you?
September 8th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Jeff, Steve, etc.
The five trillion estimate comes from an estimate I’ve heard over the long term costs of the Waxman bill. Obviously it’s not to be trusted. I just threw it out there as an example. Personally, if five trillion is plausible, that really seems, in my judgment, to push it. One trillion, on the other hand, seems like an acceptable cost. As for the ‘Scale of Catastrophes’–all I know is that, when I read articles or arguments warning of the disasters to befall a warming earth, they are always threats like disease, fire, flood, severe storms, beach erosion–all very armageddonish. But I want to know specifics. Diseases, fires, floods, storms, etc.,..we pretty much know how to handle those things. Especially when you consider that we at least have a few decades to prepare and adjust. And if things are as dire as some predict, how long will take people in Phoenix to realize, ‘Hey, Buffalo’s not such a bad city after all!’…
September 8th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
who even when alive didn’t have access to a moving van.
So what would help more – a moving van (increasing energy use in the developing world), or a slightly lower chance of future drought? If we were to stop all CO2 emission today there would still be climate variability.
September 8th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
“If we were to stop all CO2 emission today there would still be climate variability.”
Of course, and the poor will always be with us. But does that mean that a set of policies that demonstrably increases these life-threatening catastrophes is somehow neutral? No; lives saved are lives saved.
September 8th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Michael, you really need to get out more. If the problems were only in America, global warming wouldn’t be much of an issue. But the real problems are in Asia. We’re talking about two billion people who will be severely effected. And we’re talking about having to relocate a population of people that is larger than North America. Think that might be problematic?
September 8th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Fostert says to Michael: “And we’re talking about having to relocate a population of people that is larger than North America. Think that might be problematic?”
Michael is presumably one of those people who was puzzled, during Katrina, about why there were still so many people in New Orleans. Why didn’t they get in their SUVs and relocate?
September 8th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Michael, let me Google that for you.
September 8th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
“how long will take people in Phoenix to realize, ‘Hey, Buffalo’s not such a bad city after all!’…”
The real issue is when a few hundred million people have to leave the Ganges region and say “Hey, Dehli really isn’t so bad.” Dehli is already way overcrowded and faces their own problems in the future. Add a few hundred million refugees and it’s going to be a really big problem.
September 8th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I wish it were, but fostert is correct. If AGW happens the way people (scientists) are predicting, then moving isn’t that viable an option. Not for the numbers and locations that are involved.
Even first world countries that have the money and tech will have huge problems. You want to consider either moving, or building a sea wall around Miami or NYC?
September 8th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
“Michael is presumably one of those people who was puzzled, during Katrina, about why there were still so many people in New Orleans.”
I was puzzled by a different question. Why didn’t they build their houses on stilts? Two weeks before Katrina, I was in Laos. Half of Pakxe was under water. But it didn’t make a huge difference. Everyone ate all their chickens and started fishing from their porch. The flooding was every bit as severe as Katrina, but the town barely skipped a beat. When your house is on stilts, so what if your front lawn is now the Mekong River? The biggest hassle is that your rooster now lives in your living room.
September 8th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
The real issue is when a few hundred million people have to leave the Ganges region and say “Hey, Dehli really isn’t so bad.” Dehli is already way overcrowded and faces their own problems in the future. Add a few hundred million refugees and it’s going to be a really big problem.
I think in the future, an organization like the Commonwealth could provide a serious aide to migration in order to save people from catastrophic environmental changes.
Canada, for one thing, could hold millions more people, and even we could. Indeed, the UK could provide a real service by letting Commonwealth citizens in, and then getting into an EU with crashing population growth rates. Indeed, as our Hector demonstrates, this could even be spun to the usually xenophobic groups as a way of rechristianizing Europe, since in my experience, South and East Asians make the most fervent and dedicated – not necessarily fanatical – Christians.
Related to this, I think it’s time that the Crown reinstitutes the practice of arranged marriages. One of the crown princes married to a South Asian would do a hell of a lot to show the Subcontinent that the Brits and the rest of the Commonwealth is willing to help them avoid disaster.
Plus, she’s way hotter than the girls that the princes are with currently. And South Asians, along with West Indians and Africans, tend to be the actual members of the Anglican Church these days. King William will, eventually, be Defender of the Faith, after all.
September 8th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
But do those costs add up the five trillion or so (at the very least) it would cost just to begin to affect the problem of climate change.
Oh gosh no. Not at all. Not even close….because they’re far, far greater.
Five trillion or so will be a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of damage climate change is capable of inflicting on us. If we can get out of it for five trillion, we’ll be far luckier than we deserve.
September 8th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
“I think in the future, an organization like the Commonwealth could provide a serious aide to migration in order to save people from catastrophic environmental changes.”
I think you’re right on that. But their resources will be really strained. When you look at the Commonwealth, most of those countries will have serious problems. There’s a lot of room in Canada, but not that much room. They could maybe add another 200 million people, but that’s still not everyone that has to move from the other Commonwealth countries. That would cover Bangladesh and eastern India. But where does everyone else go?
September 8th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
And why can’t I spell Delhi? I spent way too much time there to not be able to spell it.
September 8th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Dave,
I followed your advice, but it did not alleviate any doubts. I checked on the first several sites, and when the potentially scary consequences of global warming are listed, they are things like: Heat waves, more hurricanes, some extinction, growing sea levels, wildfires, etc…..no one’s arguing that that ain’t bad stuff, but surely it’s not stuff that must be avoided whatever the cost. So all I’m asking for is an estimate for that cost. Similarly, fostert and others seem all hung up on the Asia dilemma: no doubt that that’s a massive potential future problem, but it’s not like Global warming isn’t also a massive potential future problem, so we should seriously ask, Which would be cheaper to confront factoring in probability of success?
September 8th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Diseases, fires, floods, storms, etc.,..we pretty much know how to handle those things.
Sure. Just look at how well we handled Hurricane Katrina.
September 8th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Europe, but they’d need the Brits to bribe a door open.
Perhaps the Foreign Office could do so by explaining to all those Southern European countries below replacement level that their transfer payments would dry up faster than the Himalayan glaciers if they didn’t let in some new folks.
Unfortunately, the problem of Indian overpopulation may be solved by the Pakistanis, U-235, and a lot of Shaheen and Ghauri missiles, leaving plenty of free space for Bangladeshis. Moreover, at that point, there would be vast open spaces on India’s western frontier, and the half life of U-235 is only like 40 years, right?
Sadly, given mankind’s record, I suspect that’s what will most likely happen.
September 8th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
“no doubt that that’s a massive potential future problem, but it’s not like Global warming isn’t also a massive potential future problem”
Huh? I’m talking about the problems of Global Warming. It’s not like Asia is somehow a separate issue. Asia is pretty much half the world. When you think in terms of the world being North America and Europe, you should remember that Europe and North America have a combined population of less than India alone. Want to add in China? They have musicians in India that are way bigger than Elvis ever was. If you are the biggest pop star in India, you are the biggest pop star in the world. Insignificant populations like America and Europe really don’t factor in very much.
September 8th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
fostert,
Perhaps I could be clearer: Climate change, most dangerously, global warming, is occurring. The effects of global warming will be massive population displacements, increased floods, droughts, hurricans, etc. We can approach the matter two ways: 1) Attempt to forestall or reverse the cause (global warming). 2) Prepare to deal with the effects. My suspicion is that (2) is not given as much serious attention as it deserves. Makes sense: our first reaction, naturally, when confronted with a problem is to try to stop the problem; it’s a bit unnatural to just accept the problem and set about dealing with the consequences. Moreover, a huge problem facing proponents of climate change reduction policies is getting China and India on board. They are understandably irked at a free rider problem and believe that the costs and benefits are unfairly distributed. But, if the problems of population displacement are going to be as sudden and severe as you suggest, then we might have a lot more luck convincing them to confront THAT problem rather than global warming per se….
September 8th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Let me use Matt’s public soapbox to sneak in a final point:
I moreover suspect that most strong proponents of carbon reduction regimes accept as a general premise the following: All things being equal, large-scale human induced changes to the environment are intrinsically bad.
I reject that premise. I think a lack of serious considerations of (2) above often results from an unquestioning acceptance of this premise. If we reject it, (2) begins to seem more deserving of serious consideration.
September 8th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
As for what is the most cost effective solution, you really have to factor in the value of an Asian life. Are we willing to kill a few hundred million Asians so we can have air conditioning? We really need to ask that question. Sadly, I think the answer is yes, we are willing to do it. But we should at least ask the question and answer it honestly. And we really should give an honest accounting of how many Asians should die so that one American can live. Do you really believe your life is worth ten Asians? Fine, just acknowledge that.
September 8th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
“If we reject it, (2) begins to seem more deserving of serious consideration.”
The reason I wouldn’t consider option (2) is that it’s much more daunting. How do you relocate a few hundred million people? How many Indian refugees are you going to support? If you aren’t willing to support an Indian family living in your house, then you have two options: solve the problem before it gets that far, or kill them. Relocating these people just won’t happen. They’ll just die. Think of this: Imagine relocating all of North America to somewhere else. Where would they go? We had a hard enough time relocating the people of new Orleans, and that’s a tiny problem. Even relocating all of New York City would be a small problem.
September 8th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
I’m not suggesting that your three year old should die. I’m recommending that s/he move.
Move where? How? To do what? To live on what?
These are herdsmen and farmers. If they move, they lose their herds and crops and have no way to support themselves, so suddenly you have hundreds of thousands or millions of destitute poor moving into other cities/regions/countries that don’t want them and can’t support them. It’s tremendously costly and destabilizing (not even going into the cost in human suffering).
September 8th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
“That’ll cost $576 million but less than half the required amount has been raised.”
Tell you what. Let’s see how efficiently that first half is actually applied before passing the collection plate. Throwing money at Africa without consequences for embezzlement from the UN down to the local warlord is worse than giving nothing at all because it merely perpetuates the problem while simultaneously increasing Western Smug levels.
September 8th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Re: Dehli is already way overcrowded and faces their own problems in the future. Add a few hundred million refugees and it’s going to be a really big problem.
I hate to be really grim, but I suspect that the problem won’t be as a big as many think. Reason being, there won’t be anywhere for the people so they won’t go. They’ll stay and, yes, die. And humans have a long history of staying put in the face of looming catastrophe even when they can leave. Review the history of Pompeii, or of St Pierre on Martinqiue, for examples.
September 8th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Re: I’m not suggesting that your three year old should die. I’m recommending that s/he move.
Sounds like you’ve never spoken to an African herdsman. I have. In reality, some of these people will not doubt find places to move to, and may even be able to make a better life for themselves, but a great many will starve. When herding people lose their livestock, they have just lost their food, their income, and their capital all in one. Kenya can already not support (by a long shot) all the dispossessed rural people who want to move to the cities, it sure isn’t going to be able to support even more.
Global warming is going to cause a great many people to lose their lives, and much of those effects are irreversible in the near term, but at least we can do is try to avoid making the problem too much worse. And we should pause to remember that those Kenyan herdsmen weren’t the ones responsible for global warming. Just like the Native Americans whom we commited genocide against, they are paying the price for the comfortable lifestyle that Americans enjoy today.
September 8th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
“Moreover, a huge problem facing proponents of climate change reduction policies is getting China and India on board.”
That’s just America making excuses for not solving its problems. We consume twenty times the energy that an Indian does and ten times what a Chinese person does. And they have to be the solution? How about we reduce our energy consumption to Chinese levels? That alone would cut CO2 production substantially. In terms of a realistic policy, China should stay the same, India should double its emissions, and we should cut ours by 75%. That would still be unfair to Asia, but even that’s asking too much of Americans. And here’s a simple thought: how about the people who caused the problem be the solution to it? Why should we always cause problems and expect the Asians to solve them for us?
September 8th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
“I moreover suspect that most strong proponents of carbon reduction regimes accept as a general premise the following: All things being equal, large-scale human induced changes to the environment are intrinsically bad.
I reject that premise.”
It takes some balls to say this on a post that’s about the catastrophic fires and drought caused by global warming.
September 8th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
“Sounds like you’ve never spoken to an African herdsman. I have.”
I haven’t, but I have spoken to a lot of Asian rice farmers. And their situation is no better. Anyone have a spare forty acres of land suitable for farming? If fifty million of us can’t answer ‘yes’, then a lot of people will die. Sometimes I feel like Hector is the only other person who really understands what the rest of the world really faces. To most Americans, the rest of the world is really an abstraction. It’s a lot more real when you actually meet these people and see what they face. Their lives can be ruined by an obscure phrase in one of our agricultural bills that nobody even bother to read. They lost their farm and have to sell their daughter into prostitution, and we don’t even know it happened. But God forbid that some blond girl goes missing. That’s somehow a crisis.
September 8th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
To most Americans, the rest of the world is really an abstraction. It’s a lot more real when you actually meet these people and see what they face. Their lives can be ruined by an obscure phrase in one of our agricultural bills that nobody even bother to read. They lost their farm and have to sell their daughter into prostitution, and we don’t even know it happened. But God forbid that some blond girl goes missing. That’s somehow a crisis.
fostert, you’re at least twenty years older than me by my count. The way I see it, when you relate these stories, and generally you’re able to corroborate them, they often make me impressed at how indomitable the human spirit can be. But they also, like now, demonstrate why I feel justified in being appalled at how this country’s run, and how our society functions within the wider world.
And, then, I find people my own age are chided for being “cynical” or “disaffected” about politics. Shouldn’t we be? If anything, I think a little more cynicism – and honesty – is *necessary*. I completely agree that the vast majority of Americans would rather fifty million die than see a small loss in their standard of living. But what frustrates me is that they will not admit that. I often face this in my arguments with my friends and family. It’s difficult not to come off like an asshole, especially since I do have a reputation for conflating issues. But how else can we approach something like the imminent drowning of Bengal? My father loves to say that “science” will come up with some solution, and I can only shake my head. The Green Lantern principle seems to pervade our discourse. No matter what, as long as there’s a will for something, it will happen. No word on the logistical impossibility of resettling the Mekong, the Red River, the Ganges, or even the Mississippi Deltas. Or on the creeping desiccation of pretty much the entire African continent, Central Asia, the Central Provinces and the Punjab.
Sometimes I feel like Hector is the only other person who really understands what the rest of the world really faces. To most Americans, the rest of the world is really an abstraction.
And *that* is why I get annoyed when people decide to spend their time going after Hector. I don’t agree with a lot of his views, but there are so many, many, many more worthy targets, even among the readers of this blog.
September 8th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Sometimes I feel like Hector is the only other person who really understands what the rest of the world really faces. To most Americans, the rest of the world is really an abstraction.
Hey now. Some of us have lived much of our lives overseas, you know….
September 8th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
It’s like that Seinfeld where Jerry and Elaine were about to take a flight, and they had one first class and one coach ticket. Jerry took the first class ticket because he had flown first class before, and he knew what he would be missing in coach. Elain OTOH wouldn’t miss what she had never had.
You kidding? To most Americans, the rest of America is a freaking abstraction. The rest of the world is a magic fairy tale where they build BMWs, invent sushi, and have funny food/names/languages. I’m not even sure that there would be much support for CO2 reduction on the basis of what it would do to our lifestyles. Everyone would just assume it’d be some other person getting the sharp edge of the climate change.
September 8th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
it’ll be expensive to slowly relocate large populations from the American southwest to the American North and Canadian plains
Hey, I live in the American North, and they’re NOT coming here. There’s no ‘We’ in Great Lakes. I’m gettin’ a gun.
September 9th, 2009 at 12:36 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by AirDye® and Matt Yglesias RSS. AirDye® said: RT @m_beaumont: Matt Yglesias on the drought in Kenya: http://bit.ly/2JNCqD [...]
September 9th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Personally, if five trillion is plausible, that really seems, in my judgment, to push it. One trillion, on the other hand, seems like an acceptable cost.
Since last year the US government has spent about twelve trillion dollars to combat the financial crisis. Twelve trillion, and that’s just to deal with one financial crisis for one year in one country that didn’t displace vast populations or flood cities or cause massive famines or disease. Look at it that way, and you’ll soon realize that your cost estimates of what it would take to addess catastrophic global climate change are childishly low.
September 10th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Ummmmm……why is it our responsibility to save 4 million people when our world is so totally overpopulated as it is?
And…….isn’t the rest of the world always complaining about us putting our noses in outher countries’ business?
Oh, but when they WANT us to, we’re supposed to jump.
Sorry to sound so callous, but wake up and get a clue!
September 10th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Ummmmm……why is it our responsibility to save 4 million people when our world is so totally overpopulated as it is?
And…….isn’t the rest of the world always complaining about us putting our noses in outher countries’ business?
Oh, but when they WANT us to, we’re supposed to jump.
Sorry to sound so callous, but wake up and get a clue!
September 11th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
[...] burn, land floods, islands are rendered uninhabitable, hurricanes destroy cities, countries are wracked by famine, etc. When you just bracket the devastating impact of unchecked climate emissions, then naturally [...]