For most people, the entire concept of Rio+20 or United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, is really nothing to be worried about. Indeed, most of the world’s (larger) leaders are staying away and otherwise skipping this massive and ironically “unsustainable” party where vast amounts of food and drink will be consumed at a rather “unsustainable” level and where I have no doubt large amounts of illicit drugs and other forms of partying will occur. But, for appearance sakes, they will send “Delegates” to party. The amount of CO2 emissions put out due to air travel and other forms of travel just make this entire event a joke. What is the point to this escapade if the world will no longer agree to anything due to nothing but the current recession world-wide?
Indeed, there is no reason to care anymore that anything will be passed because why should the US for instance agree to pay into a fund that the UN supports for “developing nations” that will basically pay them to not build power plants? Why shouldn’t we support them in their quest to fully industrialize and enjoy everything we do today? This was the framework from Kyoto and what no doubt will be attempted here at Rio this year to come up with a new Kyoto like agreement which will no doubt fail just as well to curb CO2 emissions and in addition to do anything meaningful except be a huge slush fund for third world dictators and the UN. Of course, like any UN sponsored fund, we will find missing funds and we will find that the missing funds end up in numbered Swiss bank accounts where we can not even get the money back and where the people guilty of it are immune from prosecution due to UN rules. How ironic that we still trust the UN isn’t it?
Even the mass media is at hand showing how hopelessly incompetent they are with statements such as this (from the New York Times.)
Representatives are trying to tackle big questions such as protecting the world’s forests and fisheries, bringing electricity to the more than one billion people who lack access to it, weaning the world off fossil fuels and encouraging farming and economic growth that do not destroy the natural environment.
The contradictory language seen today is just plain laughable. How are you going to bring electricity to over one billion people who do not have it by eliminating certain forms of it? That sheer irony of the statement just boggles the mind. But have no fear from those in the US, we are sending good old Hillary Clinton into action verses have our secretary of state do something productive like perhaps go into discussions on Iran and/or Syria. You know spots in the world where there are issues versus a party that will accomplish nothing?
But that is politics and conferences in a nutshell nowadays. The first world goes simply for appearance and to show the world that we “care”. The rest of the world goes with their hands out begging for free cash. It’s a perfect world where the UN is the only one to benefit as the people who receive money are corrupt and/or mostly third world dictators and the UN gets a percentage. There is your “green” politics for you in a nutshell. Give money to anyone in the third world as long as they keep their people in poverty. But make sure to tithe to the “Green Churches” and give the percentage to the UN, Greenpeace, Sierra club and/or WWF. That is the true purpose of these conferences and that is why we perhaps should care since its our money being squandered so that certain politicians can simply be shown to be “caring individuals.” I know how we can show that we care. Vote the bums out. All of them no matter what political party. We don’t need to waste millions on show-horse conferences like this and we definitely don’t need to send anymore money that we do not have to the third world for such vague terms as “global warming” when our own president won’t even mention it anymore.
Picture from:
BenfromMO 
Unfortunately I have to agree that there is no point in this conference, also that there is no point in any UN conference because it just serve as a vacational trip for governors, nothing changes on UN conferences. I do not agree when you talk about giving money to third world dictators my friend, because the `first world` countries in which you proudly insert your beloved US are now the rulers because you built your history giving money to third world dictators, later on taking out this dictators and rebuilding these countries… examples, Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, Ecuador and so on… so if there was a chance to give money to `third world` countries your president Obama would go to the conference.
Also, some of these so called third world countries, China, India, Brazil, are nowadays the one who sustain the economics of your first world countries, and these new riches have the same rights to develop power plants as you guys, but even if we agree that global warming is bullshit, do you think that we have enough resources to consum on US levels… no we do not have, so to balance this equation, sooner the first world countries will have to consum less, and less, and less… and them you call it crisis.
No way to live in a world with first, second and third worlds… 99%of ecobullshit is just bullshit, but one thing is not bullshit, there is just one world, and the ones who likes to enjoy their first world status in long terms, needs war. And war can kill you too, is not bullshit.
The picture you posted as Rio, is in Mexico, in Brazil we drink cachaca, not tequila… but from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego is all your dumpster, right?
BenFromMO: I do not think anyone in the third world or the countries themselves are the dumpsters of the first world or the US. This is my point in its entirety. Why are we “feeding the third world” when we could teach them to feed themselves with industrialized farming methods which keeps the first world fed? You can feed a man a fish and feed him for a day, or teach the man to fish and feed him for life. That is what I would like to see happen.
The UN’s solutions curtail industrialization, and this is the problem in feeding the world and otherwise keeping the third world in the third world. (and likewise the developing world such as Brazil, etc) I would love to see your country and every other country fully industrialized and being a player in the first world. Why should we as a country be able to tell you “we have ours, you can’t have yours.”
As far as resource scarsity goes, that is rather not an issue. Economics is what dominates what you run out of and that will always be the case. From 5000 years ago with copper to today, anytime you run short of some resource, humanity comes up with an alternative. That is history in a nutshell. I could go more into the resource issue and probably will in a future post in more detail, but rest assurred that we are not going to run out of things anytime soon and we have never ran out of anything we can mine or extract from the Earth. We have ran out of things that are “sustainable” on the other hand many times in the past from whale oil on up.
I will not go into your points on the US being an empire as you seem to say. I disagree and will leave it at that.
As far as influence for money and how that is the “entire history of the US…” that is only the recent history of the US since circa 1945. And two, there is nothing really to say about that since you do not seem to think that a country should be able to give foreign aid and should get some say on how its spent. That is rather abstract, but there it is. The USSR did the same thing (as did about every country in Europe during that time period), bought influence with money back during the cold war, but the US is always the bad guy somehow today. I don’t buy that, but I won’t get more into that now. All I will say, is if a country does not want to give influence to another country, don’t accept their money. Once you allow a country to have influence, this tends to work against you and personally I think the US should have less influence but at the same time should spend less money on Governments that hate us. In other words, stop funding so many Governments and stop giving out aid.
We don’t need to fund countries with as I will agree with you with money we don’t have coming from China or other countries.
For the record, I also realize that picture is from Cancun, and its just what the party will look like in Brazil with obviously different people and different drinks and different locations. Just another big party for UN people. We seem to agree on that, just another big waste of excess where the entire point of providing “sustainability” to the world is washed away with the message that a week-long party of excess can be the focal point of sustainability when the week is anything but sustainable. I am kind of glad we can agree on that part of it. And I hope you realize I am sincere when I say that I do not think anyone from the third world or the developing world is inferior to me. I judge people on what they do and what they say first and foremost.