IWA for Sunday 072907

Hey folks,

This week the award goes to a reporter. This story defies logic and reason. It is one of the biggest pieces of idiotic propaganda I have read in a long time. No, it actually does not appear in the NYT. It’s actually a story in the Christian Science Monitor.

The headline says it all. CSM -Climate change escalates Darfur crisis. By Scott Baldauf Fri Jul 27, 4:00 AM ET

Global warming is going to cause genocide. That’s right. Get this.

With Darfur refugee women waiting up to two days for their chance to fill buckets at a communal water point, it's only a matter of time before bickering turns into a full-fledged fight.

In the 115-degree F. heat of the Touloum refugee camp, just across Sudan's border in eastern Chad, the stakes are high. Refugees receive only 4.5 liters, on average, per family member – just enough for drinking and cooking. A family that misses its day or gets shoved aside at the water pump may not survive.

On this day, a younger woman has been caught cutting in line. She and an older woman wrestle each other to the ground.

"I have been waiting here two days for my turn, and if the water finishes I will have to ask for water from other people," says Khadija Musa, the elderly woman. "Sometimes I have to borrow water to cook. Our clothes are filthy, we cannot wash without water." She rubs her shoulder and sighs. "The only thing left is to die."

Nineteen paragraphs into this, he starts to talk about the “effects” of Global Warming.

British Home Secretary John Reid pointed to global warming as a key factor behind the conflict in Darfur. "The blunt truth is that the lack of water and agricultural land is a significant contributory factor to the tragic conflict we see unfolding in Darfur," he said. "We should see this as a warning sign."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon also joined the climate-change bandwagon, writing in a Washington Post opinion page column, "The Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change."

Activists in the Save Darfur Coalition and others say the climate-change argument is an attempt to absolve Sudan's government of its well-documented recruiting, arming, and directing of Arab janjaweed militias against black villages.

Khartoum has long minimized its own role in the fighting, calling Darfur "a local conflict." It has also minimized the death toll, citing only 9,000 deaths compared with UN estimates of 200,000.

In the refugee camps scattered across the parched deserts of Eastern Chad, where refugees receive only 4.5 to 10 liters of water a day and where refugee women are often beaten or raped when they venture into local communities in search of firewood or water from local wells, climate change is not a theoretical issue. It is a crushing fact of life.

Emmanuel Uwurukundo, head of the field office of the UN High Commission for Refugees in Iriba, says that water has now become the chief concern of aid organizations, and a growing source of tension between the local population and Sudanese refugees.

It’s a desert folks. You know the Sahara ? I waded thru the rest of this bunk and found no possible solution to this newest Global Warming crisis. No new proof that Man made Global Warming is real. No facts to back up anything.

So this is simply more Global Warming doom and gloom reporting. Congratulations Scott Baldauf, for either being so ignorant that you believe in the scam that is Global Warming enough to, or not being brave enough to say no, and just reporting what you were told to, you are the Idiot of the Week. Imagine that, now even genocide can be blamed on Global Warming. {Sigh} Sad really.
Peter