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Researcher: The US Owes the World $4 Trillion For Trashing the Climate
merbs writes: Climate change wasn't created equal. Rich, industrialized nations have contributed most of the pollution and gone way over their carbon budgets—while smaller, poorer, and more agrarian countries are little to blame. The subsequent warming will, naturally, impact everyone, often hitting the poorer countries harder. So should rich countries pay up? Researcher Damon Matthews has quantified how much historically polluting nations owe their global neighbors—and it's a lot.
What's the Chinese bill?
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
We pay for pollution. The can pay us back for defense, food, funding UN, and Foreign aid.
Says every shakedown artist in every government on the planet.
Just when they'd started to convince people that "climate change" was legitimately about real phenomenon. But, as we suspected all along, it's just another way to loot rich countries for the good of ... who? Who gets the money? Certainly not poor individuals in poor countries -- they never get the money.
Damon Matthews looks like one of those crazy anti-human scientists from Twelve Monkeys. Perhaps that's not relevant, but damned if it's not true.
So should rich countries pay up?
No. The real solution is to lower the birthrate and eventually reduce the world population. Shifting money around wouldn't solve anything.
Capitalist societies polluted far less than the communist societies did and still do.
Capitalist societies also lifted billions out of poverty while socialism killed 100 million.
If some bozo wants to start toting up a bill, I'd like to see his calculations for what he rest of the world owes the US.
In other words, fuck off and die, slaver. There are some things you just can't calculate on a balance sheet.
Infuriate left and right
4 trillion? Is that all? Why not make it 10 trillion? How much have industrialized countries given poor countries in foreign aid? Loan forgiveness? Accepting millions and millions of their citizens into our countries for better lives. Infrastructure, education, the list goes on.
The reason that many of these countries are poor is because they are run by dictators. Dictators that steal nearly every penny of foreign aid and either put it into their own pocket or use it to beef up the military to ensure that they are not thrown out of power.
Now some of the countries are genuinely poor and need our help. But many others (I'm talking about you, nearly every country on the African continent. And some south east asian countries - Indonesia and Philippines come to mind) are rife with corruption. Their people are poor not through their own fault but directly at the hands of dictators and ruling families.
Just suppose that we did cough up the 4 trillion. What do you suppose would happen? Does this guy really think that somehow, magically, all the people in these countries would be driving BMW's with their kids in boarding schools and a summer place in The Hamptons? Not fucking likely. It would all go into the dictator pockets.
Nice try though.
"Research", that's funny. This is politics, and only politics.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
1) You didn't spell "Republic" correctly. You're not a democracy.
2) Lots of other countries do that. You're not special in a good way.
3) You're assuming that those things wouldn't have been invented anyway. Television was invented by a Scotsman. The Internal Combustion Engine was developed by a Belgian living in Paris. Should I go on?
4) So you're admitting that you control currencies and ruin markets on a whim?
5) Foreign aid is a loan that must be paid back, so don't brag too much about offering someone a credit card to pay their bills. Many other countries offer disaster relief and so forth, as well - in fact, there were a number of occasions where the US demanded control of the relief military (UN) forces, threw a tantrum when they didn't get control, and just let the bad guys steal all the relief supplies.
6) World War 1 was being fought to a standstill. It likely would have ended before too many more years passed without your intervention anyway.
7) The British were going to defeat German, according to US wargaming. There was no way the Germans could keep it up, regardless of your intervention - and much of your intervention involved the transfer of money. Look up "lend/lease" if you want to see that it wasn't just you guys being heroes. Also, the US didn't fight the Japanese out of any ideal for freedom (just ask the Iraqis how free they felt with the US there, soldiers pointing guns at them screaming "I'M HERE FOR YOUR FUCKING FREEDOM!"), they attacked you.
8) The old Russian empire overthrew itself in 1917, you can't claim ownership of that. As for "liberating the remaining remnants of Europe from being ruled by others" (Department of Redundancy Department, anyone?) what are you talking about? If you keep sniffing that crap, it'll kill you.
9) Two things:
i) Second to none? I interviewed a New Zealand soldier who served in Vietnam. I recall very clearly that he told me "The Green Beret is a mighty soldier, and the New Zealand soldier is every bit as good as they are." For fucks sake, the New Zealand territorials ("weekend soldiers") go for a run while carrying a phone pole. US special forces do that and think they're mighty because of that.
ii) You now start spouting how we're lucky you don't invade us and make us all your slaves. (Panama, anyone?) But you are subjugating the world and making us live under your rules: the New Zealand government has funding and advisors from the US, teaching the government how to implement a special form of freedom that allows us to buy, but restricts our other freedoms. Caught with your hand in the till again. I don't want the US influencing my government, but the money and support they gave the current government has allowed them to get elected. Half the reason you get involved in wars is to keep your military ready and trained, just like the Wehrmacht before World War 2.
So, for the above reasons, don't tell me that you're the greatest and we owe you, because the truth is you only ever act in your self-interest. You've been a power conquering and subverting (UN Security Council veto used more than any other country) everyone else for most of the last 100 years, using the militaries and the poor of your country and others to fight wars to support your own business interests.
Your feeling of having the right to make the rest of the world pay marks you as one of the most blinkered and entitled people in the entire world.
Take your own imaginary debt and go home, or we can start discussing what you owe everyone else from history. Sheltering war criminals from us for your own benefit in a war you're waging against other states simply because it reinforces the wealth of the richest in your country, that's just sickening.
Do us a favour: grow up. A lot.
1) Nope, already done in the UK well before the US.
2) Yeah, you benefitted from immigration, well done. No debt owed to you for taking people from other places...
3) Wow, no. Airplane is a german invention, assembly line was in most of the industrial revolution, solid state electronics began at Manchester University, Digital electronics at Zurich, integrated circuits all over the place, microprocessors likewise. Petroleum based products? Really? In a story about pollution? Wow. And pharmaceuticals. Those ones you patent and then force poor countries to buy? Yeah, real generous of you. Not.
4) Hah, nope. The reserve currency status is a boon to the US, not the other way around, to the extent that the country seriously lost its shit when places tried to move to the Euro instead.
5) Wow, no. Let me know when you've paid back a tenth of a percent to the countries you took slaves from - they wouldn't need foreign aid if you hadn't fucked them over. Burning your neighbor's house down then renting him a tent isn't charity.
6) Nope again, you came in late after WWI was over, and PROFITED from it.
7) LMFAO. You entered WWII when Japan bombed you, then Germany declared war on you. Not vice versa. Mistakes that were not yours? Seriously?
8) Again, WTF?
9) Come and try it. We have nukes too - we won't win but neither will you. You tried in Vietnam and failed. What makes you think you'd stand a chance against any of the other places? Isn't this just the threat of the bully anyway "You owe me for not beating you up"? Seriously?
You my friend are delusional. Absolutely fucking delusional. Your country murders thousands every year, you invade countries for their oil (Oh right, Iraq had WMD my fucking ass it did!). You're a fucking disgrace. You shit the bed and smear it all over then claim that we should be grateful to you? Fuck right off.
I suspect the reasoning is along these lines:
1. Climate change sure sounds scary!
2. Climate change appears to conflict with my limited but unquestioned understanding of an existing ideology (guessing free market capitalism)!
3. Arrrggghhh! Cognitive dissonance! Must deny that it's real based on zero knowledge!!!1!eleventy!
4. Hmm, that feels a bit better, but I still feel a slight sense of unease. What if I'm wrong?
5. I know, what if I can convince myself that climate change == some other bogeyman?
6. OK then... well extortion is bad... Marxism is bad... and global control sounds like something the gubbermint might do.
7. Got it! Climate change == extortion and Marxism!
8. There, now I feel much better - I just need to find some like-minded people to validate my beliefs. To the interwebs!