Who Is Shirking Their CO2 Emissions Responsibilities?

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has just been in India trying to get India to sign on to a commitment to reduce their CO2 emissions. She apologized for the high CO2 emissions of the United States. Indian officials made it clear that India would not make a pledge to reduce its emissions, but joined in the criticism of the U.S. for its high emissions. India maintains that because the per capita CO2 emissions of the Indian population are very low, there is no reason to criticize India.

While I applaud India for not pledging CO2 emission reductions, they are terribly wrong that there is no reason to criticize India. Here is why:

• Global warming is no longer occurring.
• It was not primarily due to CO2 emissions when it was occurring.
• CO2, far from being a problem, is a great boon to mankind by virtue of its role in greatly enhancing plant growth.
• Increased plant growth means increased food and oxygen production.

Thus, Americans are valiantly producing large amounts of wonderful CO2 on a per capita basis, while Indians are sadly failing to do their fair share. We Americans are increasing their per capita food production far more than they are increasing ours. We Americans are increasing their per capital oxygen supply far more than they are increasing ours. Americans are giving the world a great gift which is not adequately reciprocated by most of the people of the world!

So which country's people are doing the most yeoman work in producing this great gift of CO2? Using the estimates for each country for the year 2004, they are (in metric tons per person)

1 Qatar 69.2
2 Kuwait 38.0
3 United Arab Emirates 37.8
4 Luxembourg 24.9
5 Trinidad and Tobago 24.7
6 Brunei 24.1
7 Bahrain 23.9
8 Netherlands Antilles 22.2
9 Aruba 21.3
10 United States 20.4
11 Canada 20.0
12 Norway 19.01
13 Australia 16.3
14 Falkland Islands 14.8
15 Nauru 14.2
16 Estonia 14.1
17 Faroe Islands 13.8
18 Saudi Arabia 13.4
19 Kazakhstan 13.3
20 Gibraltar 13.0

29 Israel 10.8
30 Russia 10.5
34 Japan 9.84
37 United Kingdom 9.79
38 Germany 9.79
39 South Korea 9.77
43 Netherlands 8.74
52 Italy 7.69
59 Venezuela 6.57
61 Iran 6.31
63 France 6.2
66 Sweden 5.89
69 Switzerland 5.47
82 Mexico 4.24
91 China 3.84
120 Brazil 1.80
123 Indonesia 1.69
133 India 1.20

As we can see, no people compare to those of Qatar in producing huge quantities of the beneficent CO2 at 69.2 metric tons of CO2 per person! Then Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are by far the next best performers. Then there are the people of such countries as Luxembourg, the United States, and Canada who produce very healthy amounts of CO2 per person in the range from 25 to 20 metic tons per person. Now note that the people of Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany do not even contribute as half-way decent an amount as 10 metric tons per person! The ever-critical French are miserable CO2 producers at a miserly 6.2 metric tons/person. The Chinese cannot even manage a contribution of 4 metric tons per person. Brazil cannot manage a contribution of 2 metric tons per person, while India proves that its people are absolutely incompetent in producing CO2 emissions at a minuscule production of 1.2 tons per person.

So, how did Hilary Clinton get all of this backwards? I cannot imagine, but it sure is entirely consistent with the persistent wrongheadedness of the Democrat Party and the Obama administration. They get everything backwards.

So hooray for the many wonderful producers in the United States and Canada who are contributing so much to world plant growth! Boo those people in Japan, Britain, Germany, and France who cannot contribute even half as much. Then I really do not know what to say to those people of the undeveloped world such as China, Brazil, and India who cannot contribute as much as a fifth as much as Americans and Canadians. They are pathetic CO2 producers.

Why is Obama Opposed to Honduran Constitutional Government?

Obama, Clinton, Chavez and his allies are all adamant that Honduran President Manuel Zelaya should be returned to power in Honduras, where they claim he was deposed by a military coup. It turns out that he violated the Honduran constitution in numerous cases and the courts and the Honduran Congress ordered the military to remove him from office and exile him. An excellent commentary by Mary Anastasia O'Grady on this situation was published in 13 July in The Wall Street Journal.

As Robert Tracinski has pointed out in his TIA Daily commentary, it seems that Obama's foreign policy is consistently characterized by his being for anything which is against America's interest and indifferent or opposed to everything which is in its interest. It is clearly in our interest that democratic and constitutional government in Honduras shall survive, so he is opposed to it. It is clearly in our interest for the Iranian people to gain control of their government and take that control from nuclear weapon developing aggressors and despots seeking world chaos. Yet, Obama is indifferent to the cause of the Iranian people to the point that he made no favorable response until overwhelming American opinion forced him to say something in support of the Iranian people. Similarly, during the election, he would not speak out against the Russian invasion of Georgia. He has been weak in opposition to Iran's development of nuclear weapons and also with respect to North Korea. He has also been weak on Hamas and with respect to Russia. He has given up our defensive missile shield to be built in the Czech Republic and Poland to appease Russia.

He said that the U. S. started the global recession, which is not true. He has tried to commit the U.S. to very hurtful reductions in energy use for the purpose of making a small contribution to saving the planet from CO2 caused boiling, which clearly is not happening or going to happen in any case. He has greatly indebted the nation and wants to increase taxes greatly, both of which will cripple our ability to compete in world markets. He actually thinks this is a good thing. He wants us to be less a factor in the world economy, because he thinks we are and have been some kind of imperialist nation overdue for a lesson in humility. He wishes to have our law and our Constitution become subservient to international law and the dictates of the motley regimes of the United Nations. He wants the U. S. to submit to international taxation by creating cartels of nations favoring heavy government spending and increases in the influence of government over their private sectors, while all agreeing to increase taxes and eliminating tax havens. He has been effective in counteracting the earlier trend to tax reductions in country after country with great growth in their economies resulting. He is indifferent to Israel, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, and Poland and other allies.

In international affairs, Obama is for whatever is against America's interest and indifferent or opposed to anything which is in our interest.

Some Good, Some Odd Beliefs

I was looking at the latest Fox News Opinion Poll today and saw some very good, but also some incongruous beliefs held by Americans.

First, the most encouraging belief is that most Americans (60%) believe that "No matter what the outcome, the court should follow what the Framers meant when they wrote the Constitution.", while only 26% agreed with "If necessary, the court should ignore what the Framers meant to reach the outcome it feels is appropriate for today." 8% believed in some mix of these two interpretations of the Constitution. Surprisingly, more Democrats agreed (44%) with the Framers' intent than with the felt appropriate for today interpretation. Republicans agree with the Framers predominantly (78%), while 61% of independents went with the Framers.

Now the complete brain warp:

• 69% of the voters in the Presidential Election voted for Obama who does not believe in interpreting the Constitution as the Framers intended it to be interpreted. The only way this should be possible is if Obama did not win many of the Democrat votes in the today's interpretation category, but did win pretty much all the Independent vote, but only those who believe in the Framers' interpretation. Of course, we know this is not the case, so here is a complete disconnect on this most critical issue between what the voters believe in and how they voted.
• 42% believed Hilary Clinton would make a good Supreme Court Justice. This cannot be squared with the 60% belief in the Framers interpretation of the Constitution.
• 32% believe Al Gore would be a good Justice. This one can be mathematically squared with the 60% belief in the Framers intent, but in practice, it is clear that it is not so.

Clearly, the people have no idea at all about what major politicians think about the Constitution, have no ability to judge their actions for their Constitutionality, and/or have no idea what the intent of the Framers of the Constitution was!

On the good side again, only 1% believed a woman should be disqualified to serve as a justice of the Supreme Court because she was a woman, only 2% believed a minority member was disqualified to serve, and only 17% believed a homosexual was disqualified.

It turns out that Independents are the people who believe that most other Americans are less happy than Democrats and Republicans think they are. But, when asked how happy they are themselves, Independents are almost as happy as Republicans. Neither of them are anywhere near as happy as the power wheedlers are. The Democrats are having a heyday apparently.

Hilary's 47 Million Uninsured Americans Demagoguery

In her speech before the Democratic Party Convention last night, Hilary Clinton made the claim that 47 million Americans are without health insurance, which is not true as I have previously explained here in a detailed breakdown of the numbers and then discussed with another post on 23 July 2008 here. Of the 47 million, 10.2 million are neither U.S. citizens nor legal residents. Of course, if the rest were desperately poor Americans who could not afford health insurance, which is what we are supposed to think is the case for all 47 million, we would still have many Americans without health insurance. However, even such a number would not justify the use of government force to make everyone forfeit their options on health insurance and comply with a government health insurance mandate.

In fact, only 19.0 million Americans without health care insurance have household incomes of less than $50,000 per year! Of these, some would have health care, but for the fact they are briefly between job changes. These 19 million Americans are also not without health care, since many qualify for Medicaid or can receive treatment at hospital emergency rooms. In some cases they can go to clinics, such as those Michelle Obama helped set up for the University of Chicago Medical Center. Strange that Michelle Obama has not corrected her husband and Hilary on their use of the 47 million uninsured to imply that 47 million Americans do not get health care!

Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, and others using the 47 million uninsured Americans as a reason for imposing a government system of health insurance upon Americans is clearly demogoguery. They both have long had Senate and campaign staffs to look into this number for them and both are supposed to be highly intelligent people educated at excellent universities. Yet, they use this mythical number to mislead the American people so that they can build a highly socialist society. They knowingly are defrauding the American people and virtually no one is calling them on this fraud. It makes it very clear that they love socialism far more than they love the truth. This is a common trait for socialists and a necessary one, since socialism has so demonstrably failed as a path for good government.

The only proper goal for government is to protect the inalienable rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Free individuals are free to form voluntary organizations to help any such unfortunate people as they wish who do not have health care insurance. This is the route those who call for government coercion should be taking, but they will not put their money where their mouths are. Meanwhile, those who do not believe in socialism are more likely to voluntarily contribute to charities to take care of those in need. If helping those in need is in any way virtuous, that virtue must be attributed to those who help voluntarily, not to those who wish to use force to accomplish that end. There is no virtue in socialism no matter how great the pretense.