Originally posted by StarValleyWyOn the points I raised before:
I agree with some of your above post Rich.
I am in a mellow mood. Instead of taking you to task I will pursue the thought of the day.
Why can't they simply "afford" it?
Developing countries can't afford to control their birth rate because that takes comprehensive education, which they can't afford, and a low death rate, which requires a quality health service... which they also can't afford.
Developing countries can't afford to protect themselves effectively against the spread of AIDs for similar reasons. Awareness of public health requires good quality education and also an active and effective media... both of which cost money. Think how long it took us developed countries to start getting on top of the smoking epidemic, and how reductions in smoking rates are now being achieved.
On the rainforest, developing countries sadly can't afford to turn up the opportunity to make a quick buck. It ought to be possible to persaude them that retaining the trees will be a more sustainable money maker, but then we're back to education.
The easiest thing, as I said before, that Africa could do to help itself would be to tackle corruption. Unfortunately, people are much easier to corrupt when they are poorer than it's possible to imagine being.
Sadly, there's an awful lot of things in this world that come down to cash.
Rich.