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They've got rhythm. They've got watermelon. They've got quaint folk customs. So what need have they for jobs, for education, for civil rights? So went the "Happy Darky" myth, prevalent among well-off whites in the segregated South of half a century or so ago. The "Happy Darky" myth is being resurrected in more pernicious form by environmentalists. The introduction of electricity is "destroying" the cultures of the world's poor, said Gar Smith, who edits "The Edge," the online magazine of the San Francisco-based Earth Island Institute. With the introduction of electricity, African villagers spend too much time watching television and...

As a veteran of too many United Nations environmental mega-conferences, I arrived here a week ago for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in dread of the usual -- a festival of anti-U.S. vituperation dominated by greens and global bureaucrats, with the shameful collusion of pandering businesses. But surprisingly, Johannesburg turned out just fine. Indeed, it may be looked back on as a watershed event, the place where world leaders penned the epitaph to extravagant, unworkable and often damaging multilateral agreements. Serious Business The radicals were sent packing. Their pet issue, global warming, was barely mentioned. They were trounced on...

"In one country in this region, Zimbabwe, the lack of respect for human rights and rule of law has [helped] push millions of people toward the brink of starvation." Boooooo! "In the face of famine, several governments in Southern Africa have prevented critical U.S. food assistance from being distributed to the hungry by rejecting biotech corn." Hisssssss! The big story coming out of this week's World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg seems to be that Colin Powell was booed. This is being chalked up by some as one more global U.S. embarrassment, but the closer we inspect this event...

Johannesburg (CNSNews.com) - One of participants at the "People's Earth Summit," a parallel (protest) event to last week's United Nation's-sponsored Earth summit, said, "If anyone in a developing country looks to the U.S. and wants a lifestyle like the average American--it's total bull---t!" Paula Snyder, an American who is traveling around the developing world to promote various Green causes, told CNSNews.com , "Greed is the enemy - the underlying problem is greed, and that leads into most of the problems with the ecological system and the political system." The People's Earth Summit was held at St. Stithians College near the...

September 5, 2002 Lame-Duck Sec Gets Enviro-Raspberry Why disappointed ecomaniacs booed Powell By Ronald Bailey Johannesburg—"Shame on Bush," chanted 40 or so "delegates" from Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth as they attempted to disrupt United States Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). For those of us watching the speech in the Summit Media Center, it appeared through the distorted lens of TV as though some of the delegates representing national governments were actually heckling Powell; subsequent checking revealed that the hecklers were ideological environmentalists who had decided in advance they...

September 4, 2002 Greens Wilt Chastened Environmentalists Leave Joburg Summit Empty-handed By Ronald Bailey Johannesburg—"It's clear that we've suffered a number of major defeats in the last 10 days," declared Andrew Hewett, a spokesperson for Oxfam. Hewett was not the only ideological environmentalist to express dismay over the results of negotiations at World Summit on Sustainable Development. The Plan of Implementation negotiated by the summiteers in Johannesburg is like "putting a Band-Aid over a gaping wound," maintained a glum Melanie Steiner from the World Wildlife Federation. Greenpeace climate director Steve Sawyer commented with regard to setting goals and timetables...

Johannesburg (CNSNews.com) - The Earth summit appeared headed for the compost pile on Tuesday as environmentalists, led by Friends of the Earth International (FoEI), held their noses and declared the conference had been "hijacked" by the United States. "Betrayal," they cried. Richard Navarro, chaiman of FoOEI, stated that instead of "protecting the environment and fighting poverty and social destruction," the summit was "hijacked by free market ideology, by a backward-looking, insular and ignorant U.S...." FoEI lamented that the summit failed to stop the "tide of damage caused by the neoliberal economic ideology..." Navarro also blamed "global corporations that help keep...

September 3, 2002 Reality Check for Redistributionists Why property rights are environmental rights By Ronald Bailey Johannesburg—Forward to Socialism," "W$$D Stop Bushing People," "Don't Owe, Won't Pay," "Israel USA UK—The Toxic Axis of Evil," "Osama Bomb Sandton Kill Bush and MBeki," and "No to Neoliberal policies and Capitalism" were just a few of the slogans that adorned banners and posters in Saturday's march on the World Summit on Sustainable Development. None of the banners or chants in the demonstration of more than 10,000 people mentioned any of the conventional environmental issues like climate change, population control, renewable resources, or...

An Energetic Victory By James K. Glassman 09/03/2002 JOHANNESBURG - On a day when European leaders like France's Jacques Chirac and Germany's Gerhard Schroeder parachuted into this giant Earth Summit to blast the lack of American leadership on the environment, the United States scored a stunning victory on the contentious issue of energy - with the help of developing nations. Negotiators agreed to an energy provision for the final Implementation Plan of the World Summit on Sustainable Development that rejected targets for renewables like wind and solar power, avidly sought by radical greens and most European delegates. A source involved...

Johannesburg: A year ago this month, the world stood still as it watched horrific images of America's iconic buildings on fire. Among the clichés that rolled off the tongues of pundits was that the world had changed forever. And the world did change. The US became more arrogant and went about conducting foreign policy as if nobody else existed. Combating terrorism suddenly became the most pressing issue on the world agenda. Xenophobia was legitimised as a security measure. Rogue states were invited back into the mainstream fold, as long as they threw their weight behind the "war on terrorism". And...

'Actions Are Better' By James K. Glassman 08/30/2002 JOHANNESBURG -- The top U.S. State Department official here at the giant United Nations Earth Summit came out swinging today, sending a strong message that the American delegation, which seemed timid and obscure at the last few environmental meetings, has restored its confidence and its mission. "Much attention has been placed on the text of the Johannesburg Plan of Action, which now runs to some 30,000 words," said Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky this afternoon. "Words are good. Actions are better." Action has been the U.S. theme at the World Summit...

THE Earth Summit in Johannesburg approached collapse yesterday when European Union officials walked out of talks after failure to agree with the United States on the 14 pivotal issues, and the coalition of charities involved in the negotiations pulled out. Tempers among delegations were fraying last night, and there was growing speculation that the summit was in peril. Developing nations said that they would prefer not to sign any accord rather than agree to what was on offer. Charities said that the agreement being negotiated was a step backwards, and urged European governments not to sign. After negotiations between officials...

Still wrong after all these years Worldwatch misdiagnoses the planet again by Ronald Bailey The World Summit on Sustainable Development will convene in Johannesburg, South Africa, in September 2002. The World Summit is the 10th anniversary follow-up to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.At the Earth Summit, ideological environmentalism achieved considerable success in advancing its agenda for reshaping the world's economy. That Summit saw the adoption of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the incorporation of the precautionary principle in international treaties.In the 10 years since the Earth...

If the leaders gathered at this week's World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg really want to save the environment, they should concentrate less on eco-rhetoric, and more on promoting the free-market conditions that permit poor nations to become rich: The simple truth is that countries grow cleaner as they grow wealthier -- no matter whether they've self-consciously dedicated themselves to "sustainable" policies (whatever those are) or not. Singapore, the wealthiest state in Asia, is also its cleanest, despite being one of the continent's largest per capita manufacturers. Canada and the United States -- which Friends of the Earth...

August 30, 2002 Today's Special: Fillet of Springbok Fun at the World Summit on Sustainable Development By Ronald Bailey Johannesburg—United Nations meetings are an acquired taste. You have to love things like "nonpapers," "the Vienna Process," and press conferences by the "Group of Like-Minded Megadiverse Countries," not to mention a whole lot of speeches as high-minded as they are long-winded. But once you're hooked. your're hooked. I had my first experience at the Earth Summit in Rio ten years ago, and now you just can't keep me away from UN confabs. My last fix before this one was the...

Blessed Are The Poor With SpiritConko and Prakash Article in Tech Central Stationby Gregory Conko and Dr. C.S. Prakash June 25, 2002 This year's UN-sponsored World Food Summit just concluded with a grim reminder that the goal of cutting world hunger in half by 2015 set six years ago at the first Food Summit still seems far out of reach. This time, however, delegates agreed to meet the challenge of achieving genuine food security with a very potent tool: agricultural biotechnology. Biotechnology holds the potential to increase food production, reduce the use of synthetic chemical pesticides, and actually make foods...