------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the June 21, 2001 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- EDITORIAL: IN DEEP WATER AND OVER HIS HEAD While Texans in Houston were digging the mud out of their living rooms after a devastating hurricane and flood that killed at least 22 people and cost over a billion dollars in damage, one former Texan, George Bush, was on his way to an angry Europe to explain why his administration has torpedoed the Kyoto Accord on global warming. Global warming comes from a blanket of carbon dioxide around the earth, which has been growing because of human combustion of fossil fuels that produce greenhouse gases. The Kyoto Accord would impose limits on greenhouse gas emissions. It took 10 years of difficult debate and undeniable evidence that the world's climate has already begun to change--producing storms, floods and droughts-- before this agreement was reached. Bush went to Europe with a propaganda offensive, blaming China and India for the U.S. refusal to honor the accord. "The world's second largest emitter of greenhouse gases is China," said Bush. "Yet China was entirely exempted from the requirements of the Kyoto protocol. ... India was also exempt from Kyoto." Here are the facts, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, Census Bureau International Data Base. The United States, with just 4 percent of the world's population, in 1997 produced 6,504 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide--about 25 percent of the world's total. China emitted 4,965 metric tons of these gases. But the picture changes when you look at per capita figures. The U.S. emits 24.3 metric tons per person. China emits only 4 metric tons per capita--one sixth the rate of the U.S. India was third in total emissions--2,082 million metric tons--but had only 2.2 metric tons per person. Of the top 10 producers of greenhouse gases, China and India were at the bottom of the list of tons per person, after the U.S., Canada, South Africa, Russia, Germany, Britain, Japan and Brazil. Moreover, according to the June 12 New York Times, China "has managed to reduce its emissions significantly in the last few years." This is in spite of the fact that it was not yet required to do so under the Kyoto Accord. The Kyoto Accord takes into consideration that less developed countries need time to develop the technology to reduce their emissions. They are striving to modernize antiquated industries and have little capital to spare. It is entirely another matter with the U.S. and other industrialized imperialist giants. There is no lack of capital to restructure industry. The problem is rather that the huge corporations which dominate production don't want to lose one nickel in profits and have the political clout to obstruct any agreement. Bush is as tight as any politician can be with the oil, gas and coal industries--the main fossil fuels. His "energy plan," announced earlier with great fanfare, is nothing more than a monumental giveaway to these corporate interests. What Bush is demanding is that for every SUV manufacturer in the U.S. who might be forced to produce vehicles with greater fuel efficiency, China and India would have to close down older factories making vital products without the means to replace them or compensation of any kind. He has another gimmick, too. U.S. corporations want to be able to buy the rights to emit greenhouse gases from poorer countries, rather than lower their own emissions. The countries around the world that have been looted and oppressed by capitalist colonialism and imperialism carry a heavy burden of underdevelopment. People's China went through years of revolutionary struggle to get to the point where the imperialists could no longer walk through an "open door" and take what they pleased. Bush can't be allowed to use China and India or any other Third World country as an excuse for his brutal disregard of the environment. From Houston to Paris to Beijing, the demand should be clear: Stop the corporate polluters! Washington must honor the Kyoto Accords! This administration's failure to do so will educate many millions about what really needs to be done: build a movement for a people's takeover of the energy industry. Bush's other mission in Europe is to beat down opposition to his costly and strategically offensive National Missile Defense, which would completely demolish the 1972 Anti- Ballistic Missile Treaty and the architecture of nuclear arms control. This group of right-wing militarists now running Washington wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a new space-based weapons system--at the same time that U.S. climate science is falling far behind the rest of the world. An article in the June 11 New York Times reported that Japan is building a $400 million Earth Simulator using supercomputers capable of processing 1,000 times as much information as "the typical computer array used for climate modeling in the United States." While Europe holds the lead in this field so important for understanding what the future will bring, Washington is using its supercomputers to try and put lasers in space. The U.S. ruling class for decades has relied on military spending to put it on top of the world and pull the economy out of recessions. But the cost of this gargantuan drain on the economy can now be felt throughout the scientific- technological infrastructure of this country. While Bush is fiddling, the air traffic control system is crumbling for lack of decent computers and the waters are invading Houston's research institutions. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
