Climate change policies hurt the poor

“Africa is the renewable utopia, getting 50 per cent of its energy from renewables—though nobody wants to emulate it. In 1971, China derived 40 per cent of its energy from renewables. Since then, it has powered its incredible growth almost exclusively on heavily polluting coal, lifting a historic 680 million people out of poverty. Today, China gets a trifling 0.23 per cent of its energy from unreliable wind and solar.”

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Where are the poor people?

A Mexican man watched in amazement as people drove up, came into the food pantry, and walked out with free food and clothes. After a day of this, he turned to our acquaintance and asked, “Where are the poor people? I thought we were here to serve the poor.”

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The Des Moines Register publishes Quiner’s Diner essay on poverty

By Tom Quiner Thanks to the Des Moines Register for publishing my essay, “Obama puts the poor at risk.” Conservatives and liberals both agree on the need for a societal safety net. The challenge is to determine how high, how much, how long. Honorable people can disagree on the details, even as they agree on…

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Obama puts the poor at risk

Samson sleeps with a machete under his bed. His neighborhood isn’t a very nice place, so the machete serves as his security blanket. He lives on the wrong side of the tracks in a place called Gugulethu, as in Gugulethu, South Africa. His skin is black; his blood is red; and his heart is pure gold. Let us contrast poverty in South Africa with American poverty …

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Blessed are the Poor

By Tom Quiner Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. What does it mean to be poor? In the scripture passage above (Matthew 5:3), poor refers to an attitude. The poor in this context have a humble attitude. They are open to God. They look up to God. And…

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How to condemn a child to poverty

By Tom Quiner Don’t fall for the tired mantra that “tax cuts for the rich” are the root cause of economic inequality. Data refutes the premise. Illegitimacy, or for the politically-correct, out-of-wedlock births, is the engine of poverty. Children born to married white parents enjoy a family with a median income of $45,041. Children born…

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