LETTER: U.S. owes climate reparations
In response to your Wednesday editorial: Two arguments can be made for considering climate payments or “reparations” to low-income countries — the moral and the self-interested.
People living in areas such as Africa and South Asia are dying and suffering hunger and deprivation due to extreme floods or aridification due to climate change. The average American spews 55 times more carbon pollution into the atmosphere than the average Nigerian. Thus our lifestyle has and still is killing people far away. Most Americans actually want to be a force for good in the world, so helping others cope with our pollution makes sense.
In terms of our self-interest, our national security is compromised when climate chaos envelops a country such as Pakistan or South Sudan, fomenting radical extremist movements and mass migration. Investing in more stability in those countries means coping with climate effects.
Your editorial disingenuously implies that climate reparations would go to the petro-dictator Nicolas Maduro. In reality, coordinated international climate action will disempower corrupt petro-states and benefit U.S. security.