"THERE'S TOO MANY PEOPLE ANYWAY"

Greenies don't even pretend to be "caring"

A cry of pain from Bangladesh: "Socialists once believed that planned development and distribution would erase poverty. They did not. We are done with those collectivist intellectuals, although socialism has resurfaced in ideological environmentalism through opposition to industrialization, free trade, and genetically modified seeds that feed growing populations. The leftwing environmentalists are deeply worried that the planet would not be able to sustain an overpopulation with depleted resources, environmental damage, and climate change.

In Bangladesh, through resourceful NGOs, such ideas are widespread. We often hear intellectuals and development experts opposing genetically modified food under their "precautionary principle" or opposing oil exports, presumably for a fear of pollution.

Genetically modified seeds could be used in the mongia regions of Rangpur to stave off famines, but our hands are tied. These seeds grow in adverse and dry conditions, as in Rangpur, but we cannot disappoint the NGO wallahs or their international donors by using the seeds to meet hunger. Nor can DDT be used to eradicate mosquitoes and save lives from encephalitis, malaria, and dengue.

This international assortment of mathematical and macro economists, Malthusian doomsday environmentalists, nervous climatologists, UN officials, and consultants to governments would not tolerate free markets or reduced economic interventions by the government. To them, more freedom would mean a rapid acceleration of the economy and industrialization, or simply more motor cars on the road that may add to global warming.

These unfounded fears by environmentalists, who wish to decide how the Third World should be run, add to the tremendous pressure on the Bangladeshi government to remain the sole leader and arbiter of the economy. The government is surrounded and influenced by pressure groups to enact policies that are obliquely anti-free trade, anti-globalization, anti-"sweatshop," anti-genetically modified crops, and so on....

Our economy fails to grow. A poor economy burns less fossil fuel, and there is no capital inflow to exploit natural resources. This pleases the ideological environmentalists. But what does it do for the world's poor?....

But there is an answer: The private sector must be freed of all government control and subject only to the basic laws of the country. These laws must reflect personal freedom, property rights, and limited government. Let the people freely choose their service providers and allow job seekers to choose their employers.

However, such a scenario would be a major setback for the NGOs. They will wrestle to save Mother Earth by arguing that market freedom is dangerous and must be regulated and controlled. Political dictators, authorities, and colonial settlers have always believed freedom is dangerous, and we now see the economic authorities deny freedom for the same unfounded reason. Poverty in Bangladesh persists because of the wrong ideology. The government alone is not to be blamed. It is the prevailing intellectual climate"....

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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