I heard a representative of UNICEF the other day at a World Water Forum event. She said that 4,000 children die every day from lack of clean water and sanitation. That is more people than died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. Does Rudy Giuliani know about this? Will his gritted teeth address this problem?
In another post on this blog I proposed that Homeland Security focus on heart disease, the #1 killer of Americans. Now, I propose that they also address the global clean water and sanitation problem, the #1 killer of children on the planet.
If thousands of children are dying everyday, my Homeland (the Earth) is not Secure.
OK, presidential candidates, let's hear you propose to change the focus of Homeland Security to the UN Millennium Development Goals.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Gore gets Nobel, Bush doesn't
I'm happy for Al Gore. I'm glad that the Nobel Committee chose to focus the world's attention on climate change.
But, there is a nagging voice that asks, would Gore have won the peace prize if Bush wasn't so horrible? Did the Nobel Committee consider that giving Gore the peace prize might imply that Bush should get the Nobel War Prize?
I would bet that Tony Blair has given more speeches on climate change, and enacted more action on a national and global scale, than Gore. Gore is known by environmentalists as the pragmatic non-visionary in his political career who watered down the Kyoto Protocol to its present ineffective state and then failed to even bring it to the Senate for debate. Gore promoted the research focus of U.S. policy, but I can't think of a national program that Gore enacted on climate that had anything to do with actually reducing GHGs. Tony Blair showed over a decade of global leadership on climate, moving the whole G-8 on the issue, and has put forth pragmatic solutions to global warming setting the EU on their trajectory of global leader. Oh, but Blair has a European constituency, and in Gore's defense, Gore is saddled with the mid-Western and Southern U.S. And Blair sided with Bush on the Iraq War, so the Nobel Committee chose Gore.
OK, Gore, now give us some vision. Feel free to endorse my preferred solution, www.carbonshare.org.
Ah well, the fake choice of Gore versus Blair are mere idle thoughts, while GHGs pour out of the world's exhaust pipes, and the Iraq War rages on.
But, there is a nagging voice that asks, would Gore have won the peace prize if Bush wasn't so horrible? Did the Nobel Committee consider that giving Gore the peace prize might imply that Bush should get the Nobel War Prize?
I would bet that Tony Blair has given more speeches on climate change, and enacted more action on a national and global scale, than Gore. Gore is known by environmentalists as the pragmatic non-visionary in his political career who watered down the Kyoto Protocol to its present ineffective state and then failed to even bring it to the Senate for debate. Gore promoted the research focus of U.S. policy, but I can't think of a national program that Gore enacted on climate that had anything to do with actually reducing GHGs. Tony Blair showed over a decade of global leadership on climate, moving the whole G-8 on the issue, and has put forth pragmatic solutions to global warming setting the EU on their trajectory of global leader. Oh, but Blair has a European constituency, and in Gore's defense, Gore is saddled with the mid-Western and Southern U.S. And Blair sided with Bush on the Iraq War, so the Nobel Committee chose Gore.
OK, Gore, now give us some vision. Feel free to endorse my preferred solution, www.carbonshare.org.
Ah well, the fake choice of Gore versus Blair are mere idle thoughts, while GHGs pour out of the world's exhaust pipes, and the Iraq War rages on.
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