The administration has been on quite a roll during the U.S.-Africa Summit being held in Washington, D.C. On Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden referred to the “nation” of Africa, sparking an epic Toto remix. Not to be outdone, Secretary of State John Kerry told African leaders that despite prolonged droughts and famine in their “nation,” creating new farms is a bad idea.
Why? Because of global warming:
And now, another part of this story is that certain agricultural processes can actually release carbon pollution and help contribute to the problem in the first place. It’s a twisted circle, always complicated.
But we also know there are ways to change that. For example, rather than convert natural areas to new farmland, a process that typically releases significant amounts of carbon pollution, we can instead concentrate our efforts on making existing farmlands more productive.
Now this is an area where African leaders have actually been ahead and significantly ahead of the game for some time.
Watch Kerry’s comments below:
Making the comments all the more remarkable is that they were made mere minutes after Kerry said this:
Every day, 8,000 children die because they don’t have enough to eat. They don’t have a healthy, nutritious diet – 8,000 children every single day. Around the world, one in eight people suffers from chronic hunger. And in Sub-Sahara Africa, that number, regrettably, is one in four.
So looking to the future, it’s only going to become more difficult to bring these numbers down, if you look at the realities of what is happening.
In short, we must end hunger in Africa, but not if it increases your carbon footprint.
Take a look:
The entire text of Kerry’s speech can be found here.
Cross-posted at the Mental Recession
