"Economic rights ARE human
rights"
in cooperation with the Congress of Racial Equality.
Paul Driessen, Director.
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Economic
Human Rights Project
"Economic rights ARE human
rights" |
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An initiative of the Center for
the Defense of Free Enterprise in cooperation with the Congress of Racial Equality. Paul Driessen, Director. |
February 4, 2004
Today, in an auspicious
launching of the
Economic Human Rights Project, Director Paul Driessen gave congressional testimony
announcing the Project and introducing the United States Congress to
representatives of the Congress of Racial Equality: Niger Innis, National
Spokesperson; Cyril Boynes, Jr., Director of International Affairs; and
Fifi
Kobusingye-Boynes,
designer and entrepreneur, Uganda.
Paul Driessen |
 Niger Innis |
 Cyril Boynes, Jr. |
 Fifi Kobusingye-Boynes |
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Economic Human Rights Project delegation arrives for congressional hearing |
Niger Innis, Cyril Boynes, Jr., and Paul Driessen wait for Hearing Room to open |
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Director Paul Driessen goes to witness table to deliver Project testimony |
Members of Congress take their seats at the dais |
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House
Subcommittee on Energy and Natural Resources Chairman, |
Public space fills rapidly. |
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CORE delegates wait for Ms. Kobusingye-Boynes to deliver her statement for the record |
Rep. Carolyn C. Kilpatrick (D-MI) congratulates CORE delegates, requests more information |
Economic Human Rights Project delegation meets
with U.S. House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo at congressional
hearing. Left to right: Cyril Boynes, Jr., Paul Driessen, Fifi Kobusingye-Boynes,
Rep. Richard Pombo, Niger Innis.
For a full exploration of Paul Driessen's book Eco-Imperialism, be sure to visit its excellent website, www.eco-imperialism.com.
Listen to Paul Driessen's testimony (Windows Media Audio) click here.
Here is Paul Driessen's oral testimony before the United States Congress:
SCIENCE AND PUBLIC POLICY
Statement of Paul Driessen, Director, Economic Human Rights Project
before the
House Subcommittee on Energy and Natural Resources
Barbara Cubin, Chairman
February 4, 2004
Madame Chairman, members of the subcommittee. It is an honor to be here, and I thank you for inviting me to testify.
My name is Paul Driessen. I’m the author or Eco-Imperialism: Green Power · Black Death – and director of the Economic Human Rights Project, an initiative of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, in cooperation with the Congress of Racial Equality. Neither the project nor our sponsoring organizations receives any government funding. Accompanying me today are Niger Innis, Cyril Boynes, Jr. of CORE – and Fifi Kobusingye-Boynes of Uganda.
We believe “Economic rights are human rights.” We are dedicated to correcting prevalent environmental myths and misguided policies that help perpetuate poverty, misery, disease and early death in developing countries.
I am here today to discuss three glaring examples that fall within the subcommittee’s jurisdiction, which includes “cooperative efforts to encourage, enhance and improve international programs for the protection of the environment and conservation of natural resources.” Indeed, because the lives of so many people are directly affected by these examples, they may be among the most important issues you will face.
Two billion people in Africa, Asia and Latin America still do not have electricity – and must live without lights, refrigeration, hospitals, sanitation, safe water, or the hope of economic growth and better lives. Millions of mothers and daughters spend their days gathering wood or cow dung – and breathing polluted smoke from cooking and heating fires.
Four million infants, children and mothers die every year from lung infections – millions more from dysentery and other diseases caused by tainted water and spoiled food.
Wildlife habitats slowly disappear, as people cut down trees, because they don’t have electricity. And progress and economic development remain no more than dreams or mirages – because without energy and mineral production, there can be no wealth generation, no new investment in these destitute nations, no hope or opportunity for their people.
How can this happen? It is due in large part to strident opposition to hydroelectric, fossil fuel and nuclear energy projects by powerful, First World environmental groups that insist that developing countries must rely on wind and solar power, or go without electricity.
This is Eco-Imperialism – and it’s destructive to people and their environment.
Biotechnology could fortify plants with vitamins, to reduce malnutrition and blindness. It could increase crop yields, replace crops devastated by disease and drought, provide children’s vaccinations, and reduce the need to cultivate so much wildlife habitat, and use so many pesticides and fertilizers.
But ideological environmentalists oppose this technology, too – on speculative environmental and specious ethical grounds. As Kenyan plant biologist Florence Wambugu says, “I appreciate ethical concerns, but anything that doesn’t feed our children is unethical.”
Every year, 250 million Africans get so sick from malaria that they cannot work, go to school, care for their families or cultivate their fields, for weeks or months on end. Every year, 2 million Africans die from this dreaded disease – far more than from AIDS. More than half are infants and children.
Millions more are so weakened from malaria that they succumb to AIDS, dysentery and other serial killers that stalk these impoverished lands.
How is this possible? It happens in part because environmental activists – along with the World Health Organization and our own USAID – tell these countries they must rely on bed nets and drug therapies, since the WHO and AID oppose and will not fund pesticides.
These people can afford to take this position. They live in wealthy, malaria-free societies – because we used pesticides to eliminate malaria in the United States and Europe, and still use pesticides today to combat West Nile virus.
But their inhumane policies mean hundreds of thousands of children and parents will die every year who would live, if their countries could also use pesticides.
What can be done?
What I suggest is not a solution. But it will lay the foundation for a solution. I recommend that the subcommittee commission a careful, brutally honest study to explore three questions:
1. Will biotechnology and non-renewable electrical generation be better – or worse – for plant and animal species, habitats, scenic values, air and water quality, and people in developing countries?
2. Will greater prosperity in developing nations place greater stress on the Earth and its natural resources – or will it free people from poverty, starvation and killer diseases … unleash their creative energy … and generate the wealth, human spirit and technological progress that can help conserve energy, mineral and environmental resources?
3. Will the use of pesticides to control malaria, under careful, modern guidelines, harm – or improve – the environment of developing countries? In other words, should hypothetical risks of pesticides, or ideological opposition to them, override the clear health and economic benefits of using them? Does banning these pesticides violate the most basic human rights of people in these countries – including their right to live?
I think I know the answers to these questions – as do you. Our country is living proof. If the subcommittee accepts the Project’s challenge, millions of parents, children and animals will be alive to thank it.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify. I’d be happy to answer any questions.
Next: March 23 Road show begins at the University of Minnesota
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