Sunday, June 26, 2022

Biden EPA Nominee Supports "Climate Reparations"

 

The Biden administration has nominated Howard University Environmental Law Professor Carlton Waterhouse to become assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Land and Emergency Management. Waterhouse is a truly far-left radical and supporter of so-called “climate reparations.” He believes that the United States needs to be punished for having an advanced economy, as it must have become wealthy only at the expense of other countries.

At the American Climate Leadership Summit in 2020, Waterhouse, who also believes in reparations for Black people, stated: “Climate reparations is really just calling for the equitable redress for the harm that has been caused historically. That’s what it’s about—making amends.”

He added: “I think climate reparations are essential and an important part of having an equitable climate vision. I think we have to understand that we’re not able to get to an equitable climate solution if we don’t address the inequities in our society. So ultimately, our environment is just one larger part of the social world in which we live. When we think about an equitable climate solution, we’ve got to think about how to equitably deal with this social inequality and injustices that result from our history of gender, race, and class discrimination, and that kind of reality means that we have to envision a space where those are not present. As long as gender and race and class discrimination define people's experiences in our society, they will also define their experiences in relationship to the environment. And so that has to be the central part of really moving us forward to address an accurate and equitable climate vision.”

Let me put this as equitably as I can: HUH?!

Waterhouse drones on: “With regards to climate reparations, I might start off by saying the United States historically is one of the biggest contributors by itself, probably the largest historically of any contributors to climate problems at all, followed by Europe. When you put Europe and the United States together, you’re kind of talking about 90 percent of the contributors to the greenhouse gases that we are now suffering the consequences from. In contrast, the rest of the world combined probably has contributed roughly 10 percent. Marginalized communities within those countries that have gotten the least benefits out of that pollution, are also going to suffer some of the greatest harms from that. And around the world, countries that have had very little if any contribution towards climate change are suffering some of its worst consequences. Climate reparations is really just calling for the equitable redress for the harm that has been caused historically.”

And on: he opined on the importance of “engaging as allies and as advocates for marginalized communities, for communities of color, for working class, and low-income communities.”

And on: “If you’re a part of an organization, or a church, or you're just an individual who’s concerned about addressing climate change, then it’s important for you to serve as an ally, for those on the ground community-based environmental justice organizations, social-justice organizations that are fighting around issues of environmental justice. As long as the people who are most at risk and most marginalized are neglected, we’ll never really have an equitable climate solution. But if we begin by looking to those who are most threatened, like those in Flint, and in other cities like East Chicago, Indiana, when you look to those communities that are most threatened, most harmed, then you're going to find solutions that are going to allow everyone to be able to succeed.”

Ranking GOP committee member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) recently unearthed some of Waterhouse’s earlier tweets, exposing his extreme anti-capitalist views—and stupendous ignorance.

“The ugly truth about energy. The ends don’t justify the means,” Waterhouse wrote on April 25, 2015, employing the hashtag “ResistCapitalism.”

The ugly truth about Leftists is that they are totalitarians. Being able to feed and clothe your family, move freely about the country and the world, and heat or cool your house, does justify the means. Think of the alternative. Think of going back to the Middle Ages.

On May 17, 2015, he tweeted, “Inexpensive products have a high cost. Workers pay with their happiness, health & their lives,” adding the same hashtag.

No, Mr. Waterhouse, the vast array of affordable products that capitalism made possible brought much happiness to the world and raised billions out of poverty-- and their life expectancy, too.

Waterhouse is a virtue-signaling, elitist, authoritarian whacko, so naturally he was awarded a doctorate in social ethics and a master’s degree in theological studies by Emory University. His nomination may be approved by the Senate in the near future.

Is paying “reparations” to every nation/person/entity in the world that is less well off than the U.S./you/your group good policy? Is it moral? Reasonable? Workable? A legitimate benefit to anyone in the long term?

Who gets to be the final arbiter? I have been improperly slighted and taken advantage of many times in my life. Can I get a governmental body to force those who have wronged me to give me reparations? And this becomes increasingly more difficult to adjudicate when we are talking about larger groups, tribes, and even nations.

In the U.S., we formerly had equal justice under the law, a Constitution that guaranteed our rights, with notions such as the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, a jury of one’s peers, etc., etc. Leftists like Waterhouse have largely expunged those personal protections in their ceaseless quest to control everything—and everyone.

We used to pride ourselves on exporting/sharing those concepts with the rest of the world, to the advancement of human freedom.

Here are some other things that the U.S. has given the rest of the world, courtesy of the innovation and work ethic that capitalism and the free market system engender: the suspension bridge, mousetrap,  lightbulb, sunglasses, phonograph, telephone, traffic light, pantyhose, zipper, hearing aid, dental floss, airbags, artificial heart, pacemaker, fire alarm, credit card, chocolate-chip cookie, airplane, skyscraper, television, nylons, laser, frozen food, liquid fuel rocket, microwave, disposable diaper, computer, internet, polio vaccine, assembly line, email, space shuttle, GPS, fiber optic cable. Etc., etc.

Who could ever pay America enough in “reparations” for those gifts? Who could truly make amends?

#ResistMarxism.

 

 

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