Who's especially responsible for climate change?

 



In April, 2022, AlterNet published this piece on "humanity" being responsible for degrading 40 percent of the land on this planet.  I wrote back on Disqus, saying that most people -- certainly most Third World people -- are responsible for very little of what's happening to their natural surroundings.   In addition to contraceptive advice and services being bottlenecked  by irresponsible American gag laws (underwritten, without any pushback, by all U.S. taxpayers), there are the land grabs being inflicted on indigenous peasant and subsistence farm communities by many of the worst corporate strip-miners and polluters.

Here is my piece of talkback: "So the UN, the political arm of the global fixit industry, blames 'humanity' for 'degrading' 40% of the world's land? Did billions of peasants and small farmers in the Third World do all that? Or should we look more closely at First-World corporate polluters and their working-class tag-alongs, who likely make up a small share of our global population? I would seriously like to see indigenous crops and wildflowers in my neighbors' backyards, but I don't own those pieces of 'property.' The great number of non-rich face similar and even more severe restrictions; without those, the land would have been found in much better shape. I wish these pencil-pushers played fewer blame games and looked around for some concrete, applicable answers."

It's old and not especially brilliant, but I hope it  brings out some discussion.

Posted by Jennifer A. Nolan

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