Eco-imperialism?

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

(From ultrarightist David Horowitz's website. The Center for the Defense 
of Free Enterprise was founded by "wise use" spokesman Ron Arnold, who 
was cited heavily on the infamous British TV channel 4 documentary on 
the Greens produced by Frank Furedi's crew. The notion of 
"Eco-Imperialism" is interesting. These pro-capitalist swine are 
appropriating the language of the left to mount a demagogic attack on 
environmentalist organizations, who--whatever their faults--are viewed 
as an obstacle to turning rainforests into commodities for sale at the 
Home Depot. This was Living Marxism's stock-in-trade for the longest 
time and continues unabated in libertarian garb at Spiked-online.)


Green Power, Black Death
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 30, 2004


Frontpage Interview has the pleasure to have Paul Driessen as its guest 
today. Mr. Driessen is a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research 
Foundation, the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise and Committee 
For A Constructive Tomorrow -- and the director of the new Economic 
Human Rights Project, a joint initiative of the CDFE and CORE. He is 
also the author of the new book, Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black 
Death (www.Eco-Imperialism.com), which addresses the hidden agendas and 
fatal repercussions of the radical environmental movement.

*


Frontpage Interview: Mr. Driessen, welcome to Frontpage Interview. In 
your book, you show that the green agenda actually fuels the 
impoverishment of many poor people in developing nations. Could you tell 
our readers briefly how the environmentalists do this in the name of 
“corporate social responsibility” and “saving the planet”?

Driessen: Radical greens are masters at devising exaggerated, imaginary 
and bogus eco-catastrophes – then imposing policies that give them 
unprecedented power, deprive other people of their freedoms and 
opportunities, impoverish entire nations, and cause not just 
impoverishment, but incalculable misery, disease and death. Of course, 
they claim their actions are motivated by concern for people, animals 
and the planet. However, the ecological benefits are often minimal to 
existent, the human toll is profound, and the absence of real 
compassion, ethics or social responsibility is glaring.

Two billion people still don’t have electricity. In Uganda and many 
other countries, less than 3 percent of the population has regular 
access to electricity. Abundant, reliable, affordable electricity is a 
precondition for health, economic and environmental progress. Without 
it, people cannot have light and refrigeration in their homes; modern 
hospitals, schools, factories or water purification plants for their 
communities; economic opportunity or hope for the future.

And yet, radical environmentalists adamantly oppose fossil fuel, nuclear 
and hydroelectric power projects – and insist on inadequate wind 
turbines, or little solar panels on huts, instead. This means millions 
of mothers and girls must continue spending hours each day cutting down 
forests for firewood, or gathering, drying and storing cow dung to burn. 
Then they are forced to spend more hours carrying water from lakes and 
rivers that are often tainted with bacteria – and still more hours 
breathing acrid, polluted smoke from their cooking and heating fires. 
The results are easily foreseeable.

Wildlife habitats are destroyed. Vast areas are blanketed with dense air 
pollution. And over 4 million infants, children and mothers die every 
year from lung infections we never even hear about anymore in the USA – 
millions more from dysentery and other diseases caused by unsafe water 
and spoiled food.

Malaria is another scourge made infinitely worse by green extremists. We 
used DDT to eliminate this mosquito-borne disease in the United States 
and Europe. Now well-off environmental activists can afford to rail 
against pesticide use in Africa, while they enjoy all the comforts that 
our high-tech, malaria-free society bestows upon them.

Meanwhile, 2 million Africans die every year from this dreaded disease. 
Hundreds of millions get so sick each year they can’t work, attend 
school, care for their families or tend their fields for weeks or months 
on end. Millions are so weakened from malaria that they succumb to AIDS, 
dysentery, tuberculosis and other serial killers that stalk these 
impoverished lands – diseases that many of them would survive if they 
weren’t so weakened by malaria and malnutrition. It’s no wonder 
sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most destitute regions on Earth.

full: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11989

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