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tv   Fareed Zakaria GPS  CNN  June 17, 2012 7:00am-8:00am PDT

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camillagate, and -- >> if there's one thing that's followed you negatively -- >> tasergate. >> you call it tasergate, troopergate. whatever. >> we sure do. >> palin's troopergate is not the same as former president clinton's troopergate. that dealt with four state troopers, an alleged marital affair, and jobs. after 42 years, sometimes it's hard keeping the gates straight. thank you very much for watching "state of the union." find today's interviews, analysis, and web exclusives at our web site, cnn.com/sotu. happy father's day to all our sotu fathers out there. "fareed zakaria gps" is next for our viewers here in the united states. this is "gps," the "global public square." welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria. we have a great show for you today with a lot of great britains. first, a different kind of conservative and one of the world's most colorful politicians.
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boris johnson, the mayor of london. he has a surprising message on the euro and on republicans. we'll talk about the olympics, of course. then, economics. a sharp discussion between two great scholars. robert skedelski, rbiographer o the euro, austerity, and fears of a meltdown. looking ahead to the real environmental summit, a sharply contrarian date from someone who says the whole thing is a waste of time. finally -- >> i am for free press, fair elections, and equal rights for women -- i can't say that! >> what in the world? the dictator might be a fun movie, but dictators in real life are getting smarter, savvier, and less authoritarian. first, here's my take. we're now in the general election campaign in the united states. the point at which the candidates are meant to pivot from the primary voters to the general election voters. most of who now are registered
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independents. this isn't really happening. the obama campaign started with its attack ads about bain capital which presented a simplistic picture of a complicated reality, although some private equity firms have engaged in some bad practices. on the whole, the industry has grown so large because it performs a useful function. then came mitt romney's first major ad which told us that on his first day in office he would introduce tax cuts. now the one idea that is almost certain not to jump-start this economy is a tax cut. after all, that's what we've been doing for the past three years. for those who think president obama's policies have done little to produce growth, keep in mind that the single largest piece of his policies in dollar terms has been tax cuts. it actually began before obama with the tax cut passed under the george w. bush administration in response to the financial crisis. then came the stimulus bill of which tax cuts were the largest chunk by far.
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1/3 of the total. then the payroll tax cut. the small business tax cut. the extension of the payroll tax cut. and so on. the president's twitter feed boasted that president obama has signed 21 tax cuts to support middle-class families. and how's that worked out? the "wall street journal" explained this away saying that the problem is all these tax cuts are temporary. if only we had across-the-board cuts. except that those were tried, as well. the 2001 bush tax cuts were designed precisely along those lines. they were in dollar terms the largest tax cutses in u.s. history. and the economy got worse, not better. in fact, the years 2000 to 2r -- 2007 were the periods of the weakest tax cuts in the recession. it can stimulate growth when you talk about 70% rates to it 0% rates as ronald reagan did. but from a moderate base or
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temporary waiver of some small tax provision is highly unlikely to unleash lasting growth. what it will do is explode the deficit. for four decades, washington politicians have bought popularity by cutting taxes. always saying that spending cut or growth will make up for the lost revenue. that never happened, and the result is $11 trillion in federal debt held by the public. and finally, now this week, democrat have been busily defending public sector unions. public sector unions are big backers of the democratic party, but their retirement benefits are, in fact, bankrupting states and localities across the country. california's total pension liabilities are now 30 times the size of its budget deficit. ohio's now add up to 30% of the state's total gdp. this is utterly unsustainable. the growth and size of these benefits are now making it impossible for governments to spend on education, infrastructure, parks, really
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anything. at some point, the candidates, both candidates need to stop pandering to their bases and start speaking intelligently to the mainstream voter about their vision for america. we're waiting. and let's get started. by some accounts, my next guest is the most popular politician in great britain. he's a conservative at a time when policies have steered england to what some are calling a double-dip recession. yet, he's just been re-elected. boris johnson is a two-time mayor of london. he is the former editor of "the spectator" magazine, and he has a new book out, "johnson's life of london: the people who made the city that made the world." he joins me now. boris, pleasure to have you on. >> very good. by the way, to be the most -- even if i were the most popular politician in britain or england which i doubt, it's not a very
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hotly contested field. pretty minimal. >> tell me why that is. because the -- your party, the conservative party, came into power and said we're going to do the thing that we have to in order to save britain, and in doing so, we will be rewarded by the market -- >> i know -- >> we will be rewarded by the economy. and in fact -- >> it's all going very slowly. and there's no doubt at all that the economy -- look at what's happening to the numbers in america. you're seeing same sorts, problems in many european countries. i think it's a lack of confidence. and i don't take the same analysis as many other members of the european political establishment or media which is that you've got to sort out the euro by creating this fiscal union. i think that's going the wrong way. i'm afraid to say that that exercise is just going to compound the mistake. and we spent two years now bailing out greece, bailing out spain, pumping money into it, trying to get the germans to be
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more generous, trying to get the peripheral countries, the mediterranean country to be more austere, cut more from their budgets, put more people on the dole -- >> what would you do? would you let it all collapse? >> well, that's obviously -- would be a disorderly outcome. what would be great, i think, is if the european leaders could face up the reality. shrug off their egos, shrug off all the political capital that europe has collective ivelivelyd in this project and say we made a mistake, we put this into a scheme, a wuone-size-fits-all union which they're not suited to. let's have a realignment, a bisection. let's do a north euro and a south euro. they've got to take control. >> that mean the best answer is break up the euro -- >> sure -- >> and allow the southern countries to have -- >> to devalue, to devalue. to get the benefits that come with competitive currency again.
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and obviously it would be difficult -- i'm not denying that there would be great strains and there would be all sort of consequences for banking and the rest of it. but you'd of lanced the boil. we'll would know where you are. we're skiing downhill blindfolded and don't know where the bottom s. it's just going to go on. >> now you said something that suggested you were disparaging -- you said something that was disparage being austerity. now the question i have for you is -- austerity in britain. your great friend when he came into power said, look, we have to make these sacrifices because it will restore market conference, it will give business the boost -- confidence, it will give business the boost it needs. in fact, the economy has suffered. many people from robert skidelski said this is what will happen at a time when the economy is weak, if you cut government spending -- >> highway hasn't. i hear what you're saying. but the reality is that actually
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the government hasn't cut spending in quite the way that people say that it has. and spending continues to be a bor -- borrowing continues to be, i think possibly there's been a lot of -- they suddenly restrained spending and they've tried to cut some of the crazier scheme. they're trying to reduce the size of the public sector insofar as they can. but, you know, they haven't made the savage cuts that some people accuse them of. i -- i do think it comes back to this issue of confidence. and i -- i do have a lot of sympathy for the chancellor and for the government. the coalition because business is sitting on these cash mountains. they've got the money. they could be investing in new plant, new employees. they could be doing it, but they're not because they don't know what's going to happen in the eurozone. they don't know what's going to happen to the banks. >> when you watch the american debate, who do you find yourself rooting for as a tory? >> mike bloomberg. i'll be honest, the mayor.
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we mayors stick up for each other in all circumstances. and i look -- ages ago, i wrote a piece in favor of obama. i think i was about the first british politician to say, come on, obama, why not? and i have to say that he hasn't reciprocated. i don't remember him endorsing me. he said -- >> the bloom off the rose. >> he probably had other things. i've got to be realistic about it. i'm an admirer of the president in many ways. i don't know very much about mitt romney. a lot of people say he's got great qualities. it's hard for me to judge. but i do know mike bloomberg, had met him a lot of times. and this is a guy who not only sets up a mass of media empire, 22 billion quids worth --
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dollars worth, sorry. he also has great experiences as a public servant and does something and innovative things. whatever you think about his banning the size of cups, whatever -- >> what do you think of that? >> whatever you think of it, it shows a very, very pragmatic, can-too can-do approach to government. the answer is -- i often think about the size of cups. i don't know. it's not instinctively the kind of thing i would do. if it can reduce childhood obesity -- >> we are going to take a break. when we come back, i'm going to ask boris johnson about conservativetively. how america and england compare. and i'll ask about the summer olympics, of course. right back. [ male announcer ] citi turns 200 this year.
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i tell mike what i can spend. i do my best to make that work. we're driving safely. and sue saved money on brakes. now that's personal pricing. we're back with boris johnson, a man who has worn many hats. mayor of london, planner of the olympics, and manager of the flab shall magazine "the spectator." do you think that conservativism in america, the republican party, is very different from conservatives in england? >> totally. i mean, totally. you know, i -- i'm a low tax, small state guy. which is why, you know, when mike says reduce cup sizes, i -- you know, find it difficult to compute. but i want to see how it works
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out. a things like all the social moral stuff, most british conservatives are far too timid to get involved in that stuff. particularly me. i wouldn't go get in -- no s, siree. that's for private conscience. >> do you secretly wish or think that's not really where conservatism should be? >> i don't think it's central to politics, as i practice it. i think these issues become hugely important totems of your beliefs. doesn't team that they should be determinative of how you run a country. i mean, what's -- these things are -- gay marriage or -- >> the three gs, gays, guns, and god. >> yeah. >> on all of them, from what i've read of your -- you see to me -- closer to a democrat than
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a republican. >> sounds like this, yeah. yeah. i mean, i think -- i didn't know the gates -- i was surprised to discover it was banned. that's ridiculous. there you go. i'm sorry, it seems that this is -- marriage is an ancient sacrament, it anti-dates prereligions. what's it got to do with anybody is my view? >> mitt romney says one of the reasons he should be made president is because he did a bang-up job running the olympics. do you think running a good spoix olympics is a qualification for higher office? >> i'm not going to be lured into that elementary trap that you dug for me. i think, freed, we're obviously excited about the olympics. we're looking forward to welcoming people this summer and hope lot of people will come from america that have a great -- speaking to your producer
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just now was saying that she wasn't going to come because she was worried about the crowds. i want you to be it's going to be fantastic, folks. london is going to be the place to be in the summer of 2012. and yes, occasionally going to one of the menus on the tube, there will be a press of people. but we're going to make sure that people have a great time. whether that -- where that leads me in my so-called political career, i don't know. i'm concentrating on this for the time being. >> running the olympics, landing for it in your compassits, it must be very different from your day-to-day life. what do you learn about dealing with this enormous, enormous event? >> it's just that there's so many bits of the mattress that keep popping up. and you've got to press it down, and it pops up again. so one day you've got the transport, right, and then something pops up with the security. and -- it's just there's -- you know, talking about a few months
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ago. we won't get to the state now where things are starting to be ready. the venues are built, they're looking fantastic. we've got the stadium complete, the aquatic center. this is not like some other olympics that i could mention. and we've built this weird curly-wurly pretzel thing, that will welcome the world, made pie an indian artist. it's -- london is going to look fantastic in games time. and we're half a billion pounds under budget. so so far, you know, touch wood, we're all right. it's not as bad as -- it's not as bad as many other olympic cities have been at this stage. >> do you wish you had the kind of powers that the people who ran the chinese, the beijing olympics had? >> well, i wish i could blow half our defense budget on the fireworks, yes, basically what
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they did. you know, i have great respect for what the chinese did. the chinese had a fantastic olympic game, but it was health care is and awe, wasn't it? it was shock and awe. they threw everything at it. we're going to be more subtle and ingenious, and i think more enjoyable. >> boris johnson, pleasure to have you on. >> thank you very much. up next, what in the world -- why the era of brutal, all-powerful dictators may be a thing of the past. i'll explain. inese takeout taco truck free range chicken pancake stack baked alaska 5% cashback. signup for 5% cashback at restaurants through june. it pays to discover. who's she? downy unstopables. here to shake up your fresh. like a cheerleader on espresso. toss these little scent boosters in before you wash. and the fresh scent will last until you're ready to wash again. [ buzzer ] [ laughs ] [ both sniff ] and this fresh scent will last? it's like you shoved a rainbow up your nose. i should go.
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now for our "what in the world" segment. we tend to think of dictators as all-powerful leaders who act with naked cruelty and impunity. think of bassar al assad in syria or for a celluloid reminder, look at this scene from sacha baron cohen's new film -- [ gunshots ] >> the film "the dictator" and our imagination of dictators is somewhat outdated. the modern dictator is more evolved and more attuned to how people think. a new book highlights that trend. it's called "the dictator's learning curve" by william dobson. dictators have gotten smart, dobson writes, to keep pace with change in technology. old school oppressors like mao,
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polpot or amin could thing secrets, that's not true today. if a dictator tried to orchestrate a mass killing and keep it secret, it would fail. it would end occupy youtube. the crimes of joseph kony are an internet phenomena and he remains on the run. war criminals can't rely on impunity. sudan's president bashir has been indicted by the criminal court. today's cleverest dictator have evolved. they allow a certain amount of dissent as an escape valve. consider china. there's a new study out by three political scientists at harvard. they've devised a way to anlizer millions of social -- analyze millions of social media site in china. what's special is they claim to do this before the chinese government sense to sensor them so it provides a unique insight into not just what the chinese people think but also what the government teams necessary to
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sensor. ♪ what did they find? con tahrir what you think, it turns out criticisms of the government are not more likely to get sensored. even vitriolic criticism is allowed. the focus is on stopping mass mobilization. last year beijing blocked internet searches for tunisia's jasmine revolution to prevent discussions about the arab spring. similarly last week, searches for the number 4-6 were censored, they represented june 4, the first of the massacre at ten tiananmen square. shows that there are measured concessions. it is said that some 500 protests take place every day across china. but anything that could lead to something larger or more organized is instantly clamped down on. ♪ another example, putin's russia has usually allowed the print media a great deal of freedom.
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on the theory that what a few tens of thousands people read in moscow and st. petersburg doesn't matter. but the regime has taken over television news completely. so mass opinion is carefully controlled out of the kremlin. we're witnessing a trend in china, russia, venezuela, and many other countries, even myanmar. gone are the days when dictators could completely ignore the demands of their people. as citizens become more exposed to events around the world, more connected to each other on the internet and social media, dictators will have to make greater concessions. it's a situation that is far better than how things were ten, 20, or 50 years ago. regimes like those in syria and north korea can still act with all-out brutality. but they are outliers. they represent a fading order. the new model is to allow a controlled space for free commerce, for open education. even for dissent. perhaps people in these
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countries can use that space to slowly expand the realm of freedom and liberty. we'll be right back. up next, is europe going to collapse and bring the u.s. economy down with it? a discussion with neil ferguson and robert skidelsky. ttd#: 1-800-345-2550
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i tell mike what i can spend. i do my best to make that work. we're driving safely. and sue saved money on brakes. now that's personal pricing. i'm candy crowley in washington. "fareed zakaria gps" will be back in 90 seconds. first, a check of the top stories. voters in greece are at the polls for an election that could decide the fate of the euro and have an impact on the u.s. economy. some analysts fear today's election could result in no clear winner, leaving greece with a weak caretaker government. another closely watched election is underway in egypt. voters are deciding a presidential runoff race between a muslim brotherhood candidate and the last prime minister to serve under former president hosni mubarak. earlier this week, an egyptian court invalidated the country's parliament and constitution. a wildfire in northern
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colorado has destroyed nearly 200 homes and burned 55,000 acres. high temperatures and strong winds aren't helping firefighter. the blaze has forced thousands of evacuations and left one person dead. iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad says he'll retire from politics when his second term ends next year. in an interview with a german newspaper, ahmadinejad said eight years is enough. those are your top stories. "reliable sources" is at the top of the hour. now back to "fareed zakaria gps." everyone is worry good europe imploding and the impact it could have not just there but all over the world, including the united states. i have two great economists and historians for insight. robert skidelsky is the authority on john main word canes, the economist who advocated government spending to promote growth on the other side sort of, we have harvard's neil ferguson who usually takes a contrarian view. gentlemen, welcome. neil, first give us a lay of the
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land. everyone's saying clearly not all euros are created equal. i'm going to put my money in german banks. that's the one country that can't default. >> i was talking to a very senior spanish official last weekend who said the problem is if one country leaves, the their stops being a monetary union, and it becomes just a currency board. and it's much easier to leave a currency board -- he was thinking here of the parallel with argentina, and the nightmare snarcenarios that the mediterranean countries are going to go the way of argenna when it gave up its peg to the dollar which was a currency board, a fixed link. and also converted currency deposit in the banking system to new and much less valuable currency. that's the nightmare scenario that southern europeans are thinking about. i call this the latin europe problem. southern europe, latin europe is beginning to look more like latin america. if more is not done in particular by the german government to stem this crisis of confidence in latin europe, then it's game over for the euro. >> do you think there's a way
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for greece to leave without it spreading the contagion? >> yes. i think so. i don't think -- i don't think spain, italy, portugal, ireland are nearly in as bad a condition as greece. i think they're more competitive, i think they're public, public -- their budgets are in sounder condition. and i think they can weather that storm. particularly when there's a big enough firewall put up. so i don't think they have to leave. and so i'm not as pessimistic as neil is that the whole thing will break up. but what i do agree with him is that it's got to be strengthened in all kinds of ways if it's to survive. >> the central issue here has been the issue of austerity versus stimulus. should there be more austerity -- you guys met, we were all in london, july, 2010. and the question i asked both of you was -- are britain's efforts that are to cut its budget
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deficit to what was regarded then as a kind of version of austerity, is it going to produce a double dip? which many people worried about. so let's watch the clip. is britain going to go into a double dip? >> i think there's a very strong chance that it will, yes. >> what do you think? >> i think it may dip, but i think it may also bounce back. and we should -- the world should watch closely if this experiment comes off. if it works, then britain will be the role model, the poster child. >> do you think that in retrospect cutting spending at a time when the economy was weak was -- was the wrong idea? >> well, there wasn't any choice. that's the first thing to establish. canesian policies are enormous if you don't have a gdp to cap ratio. but britain did when the conservative liberal government came in. indeed, if you include private debt, second only to japan and the world. so there wasn't an option. and any government would have had to do the same thing even if labor had somehow managed to
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cling on to power. >> i don't agree with that. i think neil is a wonderful spokesman for the liberal coalition. he said exactly what they're saying. and i don't think any of it is correct. and i think that there was never a chance that britain was going to go the way of greece. it was sovereign -- it was sovereign, fully sovereign. most of its debt was denominated in its own currency. it had a central bank that could print money. and -- and so this is very, very different from the situation of those countries in -- in the eurozone. britain did have an option. when you have -- when you have a debt, a high debt, and when -- when the economy has just collapsed, then of course the debt/gdp ratio rises automatically. how do you get it down, at that question. i would say and a canesian would
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say you don't get it down by shrinking the economy further. that is a move that will actually cause it to rise. you have to find some way of getting the gdp up and then the debt gdp ratio will sink. and i think that's very, very, very clear in my mind. and i think events have borne it out. what we've had is a great experiment in the application of a particular economic philosophicphilosophy which neil agrees with. he says this is a temporary blip and in a year or two we'll be back to buoyant growth -- >> i don't think it will be buoyant growth. one has to realize under a debt mountain such as the size of britain -- >> it's not a mountain. >> it is a mountain. gdp is up to 600% if you include public and private debt. that's important because that's unprecedented in history. and anybody who thinks you can magically if back to 4%, 5% growth under such a burden is deluded. almost as deluded as the people who think that britain had a canesian option in 2010. >> let me move to the subject
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that americans care most about which is america. you -- one of the things you did argue was that the united states could also face these kind of spiraling interest rates and worries about borrowing. that certainly hasn't been borne out. american borrowing costs have been plummeting over the last few years. why do you think that is? >> the massive flights to safety. if the rest of the world and particularly europe, which is as large if not larger as an economy than the u.s., is self-destructing, investors seek the safe haven of the u.s. treasury. doesn't guarantee you much return, but at least you get your capital back. >> but does that mean that the u.s. has more leeway -- >> it does, yeah. >> for example, to do infrastructure projects -- >> it always has had more leeway. i always said that the crisis that was happening, this goes back two years now in greece would spread to the rest of the mediterranean and might ultimately cross the atlantic. >> i don't think so. i think in one respect, the united kingdom has more leeway than america just because it isn't a reserve currency. it can -- it can allow its
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currency to fall. >> depreciate. >> to depreciate without anyone taking any countermeasures. in the united states, the chinese don't allow that to happen essentially. so in that sense, britain has more leeway. and it can -- it can have less austerity. >> you would want more government spending across the western world, correct? to reduce growth? >> i would like countries in the eurozone, in the european union and in britain and in the united states if necessary to suspend their fiscal austerity programs. i would say put them into cold storage for years, go on borrowing, get the economy growing again. and then you come to the structural problems, face the structural problems that you need to. if you do it now, you simply will get a shrinking economy. that's my prediction. i predicted it two years ago. and it's come to pass. now it may be wrong, maybe next year we're going to have a resumption of growth everywhere. i think the risks are on the other side. >> final word?
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>> i don't think that option exists for many countries right now. certainly didn't exist for most of the european countries. may conceivably exist for germany. but remember, think of the argument that ken rogoff and colin rinehart have made repeatedly since they published "this time is different." one you get up to a debt/gdp ratio of 90% or thereabout, the room for maneuver is pretty much gone and the debt itself starts to be the drag on growth. and that unfortunately is the position of the united states and, indeed, most countries in the developed world. >> neil ferguson, robert sked ski, a wonderful rematch. we'll have to do a third one this time in paris to do it as the french open. up next, why this week's u.n. summit in rio will be a wasted opportunity. i'll have an interesting guest who will explain why. there's perhaps a 0.0.6% of deaths due to global warming. 13% of deaths caused by air and water pollution. let's get our priorities right.
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this week, hundreds of world leaders and tens of thousands of environmentalists will convene in rj for the u.n.'s conference on sustainability development. my guest says that summit will be a wasted opportunity. the u.n. is focused on the wrong target. for every person who might die from global warming, he says, 2 0 will die from health problems caused by a lack of clean water and pollution. bjory ronburg is author of "the skeptical environmentalist" and other books and joins me.
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you have a foreign affairs article coming out in which you point out what the past history of these predictions and, you know, environmental concerns have been. explain that point briefly. >> fundamentally, it's the 40th anniversary of the limits to growth. the idea that we were going to run out of everything. even if we weren't, we were going to be screwed anyway because we have basically -- we'd be polluting ourselves to death. >> this is the report that came out from stockholm, and it was the club of rome report -- >> yeah, it came out from rome. and it was the limits to growth report. >> right. >> that ran computer models, back when -- remember, computers seemed like they were telling the truth no matter what you put into them. and i think with the -- with the oil embargo in '73, just one year later and oil prices shooting up, there was a real sense that, yes, we are running out of everything. you know, we were running out of oil. and we need to conservative everything. and we are really on a very, very wrong path. in many ways, you can see it's
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set the environmental agenda certainly for a couple of decades. >> and then so what are the snakts. >> well, the problem is they were wrong. they were first of all wrong that we were going to run out of food. perhaps more importantly for the environmental concern, they were wrong about the idea that we were going to run out of all roursds. actually, if you look at the cost of resources, the economist's way of looking at how many resources do we have left, the cost of resources generally have come down about sevenfold since 1850. and yes, it's tick eed up in th last ten years. but still from about twice as much, but if you look at the whole curb, it's very clear, it's a clear downward trend. why? because innovation is much, much more important than using up the resources. the club of rome thought was there's only this much resources when we've used up that, we are really up a creek. but of course what they forgot was we find many more resources and get better at exploiting
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poor resources further away, but even cheaper with technology. and that's really what we've done with virtually all resources. >> what about the other half of that report which was about pollution? >> yes. they also assumed -- and again, it makes sense. in a cultural setting, obviously industry is you put out -- you have belching smokestacks. they thought as we get richer and richer and there are more and more people, you'll have more and more belching smokestacks. technology takes care of that. we've seen pollution come down in rich countries for most of the last century. it's not just the technology after the club of rome report. but of course, after '72, we put extra effort into making regulations that meant that we've gotten even lower levels of air pollution. >> and so you support those government regulations? >> absolutely. we want to have regulation where it makes sense. where it -- where there's lots of people dying, for instance, from air pollution. that is a real concern.
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but you should also recognize what is it that drives the ability to care about the environment? it is that you're rich enough that you don't have to worry about your kids dying tomorrow. and that's my real concern about the way we look into the future when we go down to rio in just a few days, what are we talking about there? well, we're talking about going to a green economy, and we're talking about global warming. but in reality, the real issues of most of this world is still air and water pollution. why are we not talking about the important issues in the third world? why are we talking about -- if you will, somewhat more esoteric issues that clearly concerns first world people? there is perhaps a 0.06% deaths caused in the world by global warmi warming. there's 13% caused by air and water pollution. let's get our priorities right. i've blown away by that
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virtually everything we talk about, if you read the u.n., their little leaflet that distribute for the rio summit, they show how we should all get electric cars and we should go organic and stuff like that. no. most people in developing world cannot afford an electric car. but what we should do is focus on innovation to make those cars so cheap. then the next half century, everyone will want them. >> and how can we focus on air and water pollution in the third world? how do we deal with bringing that number down from 13%? >> well, there are two main solutions. one is that we have a lot of technologies that we know how to get clean drinking water. we also know how to get much of the air pollution, most of the air pollution deaths are actually caused by indoor air pollution. people cooking with bad fuels like dung or cardboard. let's make sure they get access to fossil fuels. that makes a lot of people uncomfortable, but of course that's the reality that we live with. and that's why two million people don't have to die in the developing world each year
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because of unsafe cooking and -- and heating fuels. but the long-term solution for that, of course, is to make sure that people actually get richer in the third world. it's a poverty problem. and so i'm a little concerned about the fact that we talk a lot about the kyoto protocol. but there's another city with a protocol that we don't talk very much about, the doja round. the idea of free trade. that is one that most economists would estimate would give much, much better opportunities in the long run for most countries in the world to actually get rid of their old problems, both environmental but also the poverty-related problems, and then start focusing on environmental problems. >> always a pleasure to have you on. >> thank you. >> come and see us again. up next, the "last look." why a text message from spain's prime minister has all of uganda atwitter. i'll explain.
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the g-20 summit will begin monday in mexico which brings me to my question of the week fl g flaeg. the g-20, 20 countries represent 2/3 of the world's population. how much of global gdp? is it, a, 66%? b, 75%? c, 84%? or d, 95%? stay tuned, and we'll tell you the correct answer. go to cnn.com/fareed for more of the gps challenge and lot of insight and analysis. you can also follow us on facebook and twitter, remember if you miss a show, go to itunes. you can get the audio podcast for free, or you can buy the video version. go there by typing itunes.com/fareed into your browser. you can also find our gps specials on itunes.
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the latest one on immigration which aired last week will go up on monday. buy it, you won't be disappointed. it's really special. this week's back of the week is "the dictator's learning curve" by william dobson. a great read, we discussed it in our "what in the world" segment. dobson clocked more than 90,000 miles of travel to research the book. he's interviewed activists and government officials to understand modern dictators. it's a fun read. for the "last look." we know that texting while driving is dangerous. spain's prime minister learned this week that texting while negotiating a bank bailout is also a bad idea. he reportedly typed out this message to his finance minister -- we're the number four power in europe. spain is not uganda. i don't know how it leaked out, but ugandans have taken their dissatisfaction to twitter using the hashtag, ugandaisnotspain.
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one tweeted, i would rather live on ugandan bananas than beg for loans. how's the austerity soup? another said, hello, pot, this is the kettle. you're black. we did a little comparison of our own anyway. uganda's economy will grow at over 4% this year. spain's will contract by almost 2%. uganda's public debt is 25% of gdp. spain's is 68%. in the last five years alone, the average ugandan's income has increased 15%. the average spaniard saw his contract by 6%. one spaniard may have gone overboard tweeting, "if only we were uganda." well, uganda's economy is .01 the sign of spain's. the answer to the question was c, g-20 members represent 64% of the world's population, but 84% of global gdp. that