The Rio+Summit is, according to the United Nations
organizers, going to be the biggest conference of all time.
It’s also going to accomplish nothing. That’s already clear
from positions taken by the participants.
But there will be lots and lots of news-media coverage of
the hand-wringing activists who will declare that the world is going to hell in
a handbasket.
Really?
Statistics show that more people are better fed than ever
before.
Poverty is in decline.
And where poverty and food shortages persist, the agendas of
the environmental activists would make things worse, not better.
They want to ban pesticides, so crop losses to weed
competition and pests would increase.
They want to ban genetically-modified crops, so the soybeans
and corn and cotton that can fight off insects would be banned.
There would be an end to research and development of
drought-tolerant, disease-resistant and saline-tolerant GMO varieties – except in
China.
They want to stop our use of oil and gas to reduce
greenhouse gases and global warming. That would leave many of the world’s poor
communities without electricity. Solar panels and wind turbines are far too
expensive and high-tech to serve these communities.
And global warming will continue because the forces at play
are far greater than anything people are doing.
We are wasting precious resources that could be used to
mitigate the effects of global warming, such as protecting ocean-side cities
from rising water levels.
Rio+Summit is a huge waste of time and effort and money. And
it distracts attention from real solutions to real challenges.
