John's interesting series on Green vs Green highlights the dilemma that arises when environmental concerns conflict. Well, here's another interesting example of trade-offs: Would you rather help the poor or combat global warming?
From the AP article yesterday:
A federal judge here said environmental groups and four U.S. cities can sue federal development agencies on allegations the overseas projects they financially back contribute to global warming.
In short, a group of environmental organizations and cities (Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Boulder, Colorado and Arcata, California) want to sue U.S. development agencies (Overseas Private Investment Corp. and the Export-Import Bank of the United States) that fund power plant construction projects in developing countries. The premise, such projects produce greenhouse gas emissions which cause global warming which harms the U.S. So, such projects should fall under the National Environmental Policy Act. It requires economic assessments of government projects with environmental impacts.
So let me get this straight...U.S. environmental organizations want to improve the environment by stopping development projects in the poorest countries. What, you don't believe me?
The U.S. law should apply, they say, because those developments are contributing to the degradation of the U.S. environment via global warming.
Well...we wouldn't want that, would we?
Yes, that's sarcasm.
