Garbage in, COP15 out

Vincent J. Curtis

8 Dec 22

RE: Developed countries called on for financial support. A CP story published in the Hamilton Spectator  8 Dec 22

If the COP15 delegates agree on anything, it’s that they need more money and power, and that western civilization should pay.  Seventy years of foreign aid isn’t enough!

In his work, Prior Analytics, Aristotle showed that a conclusion validly drawn from false premises, is false.  In computerspeak, this is called GIGO.  Let’s look at two premises of the COP15 conference.

“Most of the remaining biodiversity is in the developing nations of the global south, while most of the money – much of which has been generated at the expense of that biodiversity – is in the rich countries of the north.”  Disregarding incoherence, the basic idea that the wealth of “the north” has been generated at the expense of biodiversity is false.  The most of the wealth of the world today has been generated in the last thirty years, by the revolutions in high tech and financial engineering.  The internet did not occasion the destruction of “biodiversity,” whatever that abstraction denotes.

Then, there’s this shockingly Marxist claim by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, “We need developed countries to provide meaningful financial support for the countries of the global south as custodians of the world’s natural wealth following centuries of exploitation and loss.”  This example of distilled Marxism, the exploited and the exploiters, makes no sense economically, or even logically.  Has the south’s biodiversity been lost, or not?  How, in exchange for the north’s wealth, will the south export its biodiversity?

GIGO!

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What is the ‘global south?’  Is it really those countries south of the equator, or not?  Only  third of the world’s land mass lies south of the equator; we’re talking most of South America, The Congo and farther south in Africa, a part of Malaysia, and Australia.  I’ve not heard warnings of a massive, immanent loss in species in those regions, and some countries of the global south are developed countries, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, South Africa, and Australia.  Even here, perhaps, the Marxists speak in euphemisms; it’s not really geographically south but economically south.

 Let's also stipulate that there is no evidence of a mass species die-off as is thought to have occurred five times previously, or if one is occurring, that man is responsible.  Those are mere bald, unproven assertions.  Why is this not all as scam: give us money and we'll stop harassing you!