Leonardo DiCaprio is telling President
Bush that he needs to be more "green" at the next Earth Summit. First of all, Leonardo DiCaprio is a whiny twenty-something actor who has absolutely no right to dictate policy to anyone, least of all the President of the United States.
Second, there’s something he says that’s telling of the true motivations of the environmental movement:
DiCaprio also complained that the Bush administration has opted out of the Kyoto Protocol, an international climate treaty with mandatory controls for industry "despite the fact that we are the biggest economy and the biggest polluter."
There’s the crux of the environmentalist movement right there: the US has a big economy, and therefore needs to shackle it so it doesn’t embarrass the rest of the world. That kind of view is not only motivated by jelousy and ignorance, but is harmful to the environment as well. The United States produces a hige fraction of the world’s goods, and leads the world in developing environmentally-friendly technology. Reducing our technological progress will mean that our development of new technologies will cease, leaving the rest of the world reliant on the same old pollution generating systems. In only a few years, developing countries like China and Brazil will overtake the US in pollution, while producing far less food and goods. Of course, that’s looking at the situation rationally, which is something that neither Mr. DiCaprio nor the rest of the radical environmentalists seem to be able to do.
The rest of the world signed the protocols- we opted out. We have less than 5% of the world’s population living within our borders, yet we use more than 40% of the world’s resource production- we need to start setting an example for the rest of the world when it comes to environmental policy. We can’t keep lagging behind Europe on this issue.
We also produce more goods for the resources we consume, far greater than our population. The Kyoto Treaty is an example of horrendous public policy, which would drive up prices for *everything* by nearly 10% – a burden that would fall on those who could least afford it. If Europe chooses to committ economic suicide, that’s their choice, but they shouldn’t expect us to follow.
We may lead the world in producing pollution-reducing technology, but what change are we really creating? I see no movement away from the car-based society, no movement towards more efficient vehicles (I see the opposite in fact)… little progress on freeing ourself from oil and coal dependency (although I advocate building more nuclear plants, something most greens shy away from). The debate on global warming has become hopelessly muddled, but from the way things are looking now, we’re already headed towards major disruption of rainfall patterns on which the world’s agriculture is dependent… all in all, I’d say the Kyoto protocols are better than nothing at all.