Climate Reparations

I realize the Copenhagen climate summit is over but I just thought of a couple of good ideas. And I'd be willing to let Hillary and Obama could use these as talking points at the next big U.N. pot luck.

A little background, please. The G77, which is comprised of over 100 developing countries (that's what used to be called "third world" before that term became politically incorrect, don't ya know), is unhappy with a $10 billion annual commitment from rich countries in climate reparations. The logic goes something like this: poor countries will suffer from the effects of climate change (that's what used to be called "global warming" before that term became politically incorrect when scientists reported the earth might actually be cooling) more than the rich countries who caused all the problems to begin with when they went and built all those factories to produce goods which improved people's lives.  See, the United States ruined Mother Earth and now we should just give billions of dollars to poor countries to say we're sorry for being so bad. Get it?

OK, here's my idea. We take the United States' share of that $10 billion annually, which would probably be in the ballpark of of $9.99 billion and subtract all the money that the U.S. has spent helping and/or saving the rest of the world since 1776. We can also subtract all the money given to international charities by U.S. corporations, churches, and other non-profits. We can subtract all the money spent in Europe and Japan to rebuild those countries after both world wars; we can even bill most of those still-existing countries for saving them from Hitler. We can subtract all the economic benefits those countries got from implementing U.S. inventions and products. We can place a dollar value on the number of their citizens' lives which were saved by U.S. pharmaceuticals, doctors, and nurses. We can subtract millions of dollars we spend on AIDS research, prevention, and treatment. What is our total foreign aid budget in one year, anyway? Multiply that times 233 years.See where I'm going here?

Climate reparations? I don't think so. They owe us money. And a big thank-you, but don't hold your breath.