While the coming ice age and melting polar caps seem like issues that “our grandchildren will face,” genocide has apparently been classified as an immediate consequence of climate change. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon made that claim in a June 16 Washington Post editorial, asserting that the 200,000 person body count in Darfur “derives … from man-made global warming.”
Such a conclusion only serves to excuse away the evils of politically motivated ethnic genocide as a product of the greater global community. Just as poverty has been used to rationalize criminal activity in the past, climate change rather than ethnic hatred or access to Sudanese oil revenues, apparently incites ethno-extermination.
Moon’s article does little to reinforce the case for putting a stop to the slaughter taking place in Darfur; it only serves to intensify international focus on global warming.
It seems as if climate change has replaced poverty as the next cause célèbre, as the demand to create a Green Society begins to drown out progressive calls for a “Great Society.” Who knows, it may not be too long before climate change is officially cited as the root cause of issues like poverty, AIDs, and British child pornography rings.