If Money Could Talk: Choosing War Over Climate Change

Submitted by Vinti Singh on December 21, 2009 - 7:30am
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During the Copenhagen climate talks on Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged the United States will help raise $100 billion annually by 2020 to assist developing countries “prepare for climate disasters and develop low fossil fuel economies,” reported The New York Times.
 
Although U.S. environmental groups and House Democrats support Clinton’s pledge, “Republican staffers warned of the political difficulties back home in selling such a vast contribution as the economy reels,” the Times article said.
 
Clinton made it clear the funding would come from public and private sources, and that the United States would not pay the entire bill.
 
Two days later, the Senate approved $128 billion in military spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there will probably be more appropriations. The bill passed 395-34 in the House and 88-10 in the Senate.
 
I’m a reporter for a local newspaper. The government spending I write about--new lights for the high school football stadium, for example--are microscopic compared to the spending that goes on at the federal level. But the basic principles the city council tries to follow shouldn’t be too different from their peers in Washington, D.C.
 
At a Board of Education or Parks and Recreation meeting, whenever a budget issue comes up, there seems to be one prevailing rule: How much money a project gets, and how soon, depends on how high it is on the list of priorities.
 
The appropriations vote shows how skewed our perception is of the threat of climate change. Yes, terrorism is a real threat too, but does it justify such a greater allocation of resources?
 
Can you imagine the same kind of overwhelming support in the House and Senate for $128 billion dollars to help third-world countries move towards sustainable living? It will be interesting to watch if and how the United States follows through on Clinton’s promise. 
 
(Image by AMagill; C.C. 2.0)
 
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