But the Rest of Us Call It Certain Death

I thank Tankwoman for her timely posting on the Competitive Enterprise Institute's ad: "Carbon Dioxide...We Call it Life." The Competitive Enterprise Institute , the creators and purveyors of this ad, is a think tank funded by large corporations, which "postures as an advocate of 'sound science' in the development of public policy. In fact, it is an ideologically-driven, well-funded front for corporations opposed to safety and environmental regulations that affect the way they do business." (Wikipedia entry on CEI) One of the "large corporations" funding CEI is Exxon/Mobile (imagine that!), in fact:

Exxon Mobil Corporation is a "major donor" to CEI, with over $1.6 million in contributions between 1998 and 2005. In 2004 the company gave CEI $180,000 that was earmarked for "global climate change and global climate change outreach." CEI also gets funding from other oil companies through the American Petroleum Institute. (op cit)

This ad is showing in a select group of American cities for the next ten days - it will thus get the kind of attention that The Climate of Poverty: Facts, Fears and Hopes, will not get. At least in this country.

The Climate of Poverty is a report by the British charity Christian Aid ("We strive for a new world transformed by an end to poverty and we campaign to change the rules that keep people poor."), an agency of the churches in the UK and Ireland which works wherever the need is greatest – irrespective of religion or race. (The entire report is available as a PDF at the above link.)

The somber message of "The Climate of Poverty: Facts, Fears and Hope," is this:

Climate change is now threatening development goals for billions of the world’s poorest people – with a clear danger that recent gains in reducing poverty will be thrown into reverse in coming decades.

A staggering 182 million people in sub-Saharan Africa alone could die of disease directly attributable to climate change by the end of the century. Many millions more throughout the world face death and devastation due to climate-induced floods, famine, drought and conflict.

The report calls on the UK government to lead rich countries in taking urgent action to curb global warming. The UK government is, in fact, far ahead of the US in the action it is taking on this issue, as are the governments of many other "rich countries." The fact that here in the richest of all countries we are being lied to by our government and the large oil companies that own it is beyond belief. We can only hope that the Inconvenient Truths in the film opening next week are stronger than the Convenient Lies in the CEI ads, and that as a nation - no, as a planet - we can start working towards the vision of a different future also offered in Christian Aid's report – a revolution in development thinking that could see poor regions using renewable energy to power a new, and clean, era of prosperity.

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