Bill Clinton's Ecothink

One would expect some diversity of opinion at a gathering of heads of government, CEOs and nonprofit organizations from different sides of the political spectrum. That was not the case at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting last week, devoted mostly to climate change. From the CEO of Duke Energy Corp. to the president of the Natural Resources Defense Council to Al Gore, everyone agreed on the need for draconian limits on carbon emissions worldwide. The proposals varied from taxes on a carbon "cap and trade" system, but the assumptions on which they were all basing them were the same -- and they seem somewhat premature. No one was too concerned with the costs that a blanket limit on emissions worldwide could inflict on millions of desperate people trying to pull themselves out of poverty...The Groupthink Global Initiative, Alvaro Vargas Llosa, TCSOnline, 10/4/2007

To those who follow Al Gore's interesting pattern of conspicuous consumption, the last sentence should not be news. Llosa of TechCentralStation doesn't miss this, and you should read the whole, depressing article.

That,of course, is a comfortable position to take if you happen to live in a prosperous nation where you can afford to make costly mistakes. But developing nations are already being hurt. According to the International Monetary Fund, the price of food worldwide went up by an average 23 percent in the last 18 months because of the rising demand linked to biofuels....(Groupthink continued...)

Intellectual fads cost money, lots of it. In the case of some of them, such as the hysteria over DDT, they can cost tens of millions of lives.

Oh, and don't forget. A President Hillary Clinton's "co-President' would be the leader of this conference!

Luther