‘The origin of global warming lies in capitalism’

Lima, Peru – Evo Morales, the
president of the Plurinational Republic of Bolivia, is a superstar
politician here at the 20^th Conference of the Parties
(COP-20) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change. The press gaggle follows him around like puppies and
enthusiastically applauds his unrelenting diatribes against rich
industrialized countries. The headline was is a quotation taken
from Morales’ response to being asked at a press conference if he
was optimistic about the summit meeting here in Lima? “The deep
causes of global warming are not being dealt with here. The origin
of global warming lies in capitalism,” asserted Morales. “If we
could end capitalism then we would have a solution.”

Morales further observed, “After thirty years of negotiations,
global warming is still going on.” He added, “So many people and
countries do not act responsibly. They are only thinking about
profits, luxuries, and markets. They are not thinking about life,
but only of money and how to accumulate more capital.”

Capitalism is also the deep cause of great goods like doubled
average global life expectancy over the past century; global
literacy up from 25 percent of the world’s population to 80 percent
today; a 23 percent increase in per capita food consumption since
1961; and an increase since 1989 in the percent of countries that
are electoral democracies from 41 to 63 percent now. Just saying.