Debunking a Myth

Another NY Times:

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov. 15 — Secretary General Kofi Annan on Wednesday put the blame for global warming on “a frightening lack of leadership,” saying the poorest people in the world, who do not even create much pollution, bear the brunt of rising temperatures.

“The impact of climate change will fall disproportionately on the world’s poorest countries, many of them here in Africa,” Mr. Annan said in a speech to a major climate conference here. “Poor people already live on the front lines of pollution, disaster and the degradation of resources and land.

“For them,” the United Nations leader said, “adaptation is a matter of sheer survival.”

Story continues here....

Annan clearly hasn't bothered to talk with fellow laureate Wangari Maathai on this subject. The noted ecologist and winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize is on record--in a critically acclaimed film, no less--stating that often it is the very poor, especially in third-world nations, who have the worst ecological practices, because they are too willing to strip off and sell or trade their natural resources without the tools, knowledge, or technology to replace them.

Perhaps it's just the difference of 3 years (Annan won the NPP in 2001). Or perhaps it's just the difference between Ghana and Kenya. Or perhaps -- just perhaps -- Maathai is correct. How many times in world and even US history have we seen it happen where those who control an area's natural resources end up controlling the power and the wealth as well? Isn't that what our Civil War was about?