U.S. Pays $50 Mil To Replace Stoves In Poor Countries

As the national financial crisis worsens and states across the country hit record high unemployment rates, the U.S. will contribute tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to replace “inefficient cook stoves” contributing to climate change and deforestation in developing countries.

Even more outrageous is that the money, $50 million so far, will be handled by the notoriously corrupt United Nations which already gets billions of American taxpayer dollars a year. Its latest project to save the world, U.N. Global Alliance for Clean Cook Stoves, will get cash from foundations, corporations and governments to provide 100 million clean burning stoves to villages in Africa, Asia and South America.

It’s a crucial mission because toxic smoke from “primitive stoves” is one of the leading environmental causes of death and disease and a huge contributor to global warming, according to the U.N. The world body estimates that about 3 billion people in 500 million homes use polluting, inefficient stoves that cause nearly 2 million deaths annually as well as ailments like pneumonia, glaucoma, lung cancer, pulmonary disease, cardiovascular disease, and low birth weight.

Recognizing that this must be stopped, the U.S. is generously whipping out its checkbook to combat a health crisis that officials compare to malaria. The “clean and efficient household cooking solutions” will actually save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women and combat climate change, according to a State Department press release announcing the stove project.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will formally announce Uncle Sam’s generous contribution today at her husband’s Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York. The former commander-in-chief’s group, which has raked in tens of billions of dollars for “humanitarian” causes, professes to help solve the “world’s most pressing problems.”