Posted on 05/28/2002 3:35:32 AM PDT by kattracks
Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - Global warming and its effects, if left unchecked, could foment more terrorism, former President Bill Clinton said Monday.
Speaking at a $375-a-head automobile-launch function in Auckland, New Zealand, Clinton said the collapse last March of a large chunk of the Antarctic ice-shelf had provided "fresh evidence of the reality of global warming."
About one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions in the world come from cars and trucks, Clinton told the 750 guests, referring to pollutants environmentalists hold responsible for climate change.
Eliminating that source through various environmentally sound vehicle projects could "make a third of this problem go away," he added.
In what he said was an "unsolicited statement of support," Clinton thanked the event's hosts, German car manufacturer BMW, for its work in developing environmentally-responsible autos for the future, including work on hydrogen-powered engines.
"This is a big deal. I think the United States should have done more [in this regard] when I was president. And if I could have persuaded the Congress that global warming was real instead of some subversive plot to make us poor, we would have done more."
Clinton asserted that if the planet's climate warmed for the next 50 years at the rate of the last 10, "You will lose whole island nations in the Pacific [and] we will lose 50 feet of Manhattan island where I go to work every day."
"Farmers won't be able to grow food anymore. That will create tens of millions of food refugees, and all kinds of fertile fields for terrorism and disruption."
When the ice shelf Clinton mentioned, which was bigger than Rhode Island, broke off, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado attributed it to "strong climate warming in the region" - about half a degree Celsius each decade for at least the past half century.
The Clinton administration backed and signed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which aimed to counter climate change by reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. It required the U.S. and three dozen other nations to cut emissions by specified amounts.
But shortly after taking office, President Bush announced Washington would not ratify the "fatally flawed" agreement, which he said would hurt the American economy and U.S. workers.
Clinton Monday offered another view. "It's now no longer true that we have to put more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to get rich, stay rich or grow richer," he said. "We're going to have to prove that we can do it in an economic way."
Speaking without notes for almost an hour, the former president entertained his listeners, including Prime Minister Helen Clark, with anecdotes, including references to his first job working at a Buick dealership, where the work was "hard and dirty ... good preparation for politics."
He also recalled his last visit to New Zealand, for a 1999 Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation conference, when some of his staff had tried the New Zealand-originated pastime of bungy-jumping.
Clinton said he had passed up the opportunity, seeing the activity as too similar to politics - "everyone watching you taking a flying leap into the unknown, half the people hoping the [rubber latex] strap will break ..."
'More partners, fewer terrorists'
Much of Clinton's address focused on the need to build a global community.
While he said the effort to fight and prevent terrorism and to limit production of weapons of mass destruction was important, "it will not give you the world you want for your kids. We also have to make a world with more partners and fewer terrorists."
The world had become highly interdependent, with "collapsed borders and shortened distances," and the spread of information and technology. But it had yet to become an "integrated, global community."
Wealthy nations had to work to remove the economic, social and political paradoxes that feed humiliation and abasement, Clinton said, by increasing trade and foreign aid, and being a force for peace, especially in the Middle East and South Asia.
He chastised the U.S. for spending a smaller percentage of its budget on aid than any other donor nation. While applauding Bush's announcement in March of a boost in foreign aid, Clinton said even with that increase, the U.S. will be spending slightly less than it did as a percentage of income in 1995. "We have to do better."
"I talked about this 'til I was blue in the face, and it was a giant yawner for most people before Sept. 11. Now people are ready to listen and learn."
The "more partners, fewer terrorists" theme has become a recurrent one for Clinton since last September's terrorist attacks.
A quick internet search shows he used the phrase, or variations of it, in numerous speeches around the world, including in Georgetown University (Nov. 2001), Calgary, Alberta (Nov.), Little Rock, Arkansas (Dec.), in Britain (Dec.), the University of California, Berkeley (Jan.), Adelaide, Australia (Feb.), Montreal (Feb.), Tufts University (Mar.) and the University of Nevada (Apr.)
Several New Zealand media reports noted that Clinton is reportedly paid in the vicinity of $250,000 for a single speech - with one report breaking it down to $5,280 a minute, and $88 a second.
Apart from the dinner tickets, BMW also charged around 20 VIP guests almost $12,000 each for a 30-minute cocktail meeting and photograph session with Clinton earlier in the evening.
See also:
Global Warming Models Labeled 'Fairy Tale' By Team of Scientists (May 14, 2002)
Pacific Nations May Sue US, Australia over Greenhouse Gases (Mar. 5, 2002)
E-mail a news tip to Patrick Goodenough.
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,,, nothing a little sodium morphate won't fix.
You've hit the nail on the head. This guy wants power and not from behind the scenes. What gets me is the gullible, stupid people that buy this guy's bullsh*t!
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