What's going on here? From the "G-8" Summit in Scotland and the Kyoto Treaty on Global Warming, and the latest international political fad of "uplifting" the backward masses of the continent of Africa, the world, with the help our poorly informed pretty-girl-pretty-boy talking hollow heads on TV, always seems to accuse us Americans as the bad guys.

What has happened to the facts?

The taxpayers of the United States have no obligation to Africa, a fact.

The United States doesn't need the Kyoto Treaty, because we are years ahead of the rest of the industrialized world when it comes to our environment, a fact.

The most polluted countries in the world are the former communist bloc countries, and the worst industrial polluter in the world for the past 75 years continues to be Russia, a fact.

Let's take these assertions one at a time, starting with Africa.

There are several different countries on the continent of Africa. So, if we are to "uplift" the "Africans" (by "uplift" the politicians of the world, including ours, mean spending American taxpayers' money), we will be pouring money into some of the richest oil producing and oil blackmailing countries in the world. As to my statement that we have no historical obligation to the continent of Africa, let's take a peep at the history. The politicians of Old Europe, and their client states Egypt and Turkey, gave themselves (partitioned) Africa in 1898, in an attempt to settle their constant rivalry over the rich natural resources of the continent of Africa. Here's what each of them took (in square miles): British (Africa, in each case.) 2,101,411; Egyptian 1,600,000; French 3,866,950; German 910,150; Italian 200,000; Portuguese 787,500; Spanish 79,800; Belgian 900,000; Turkish 400,000, and Independent areas 613,000.

What percentage of Africa did the USA take to enrich itself? NONE. ZERO. NIL. Was the USA ever consulted as to what to do with Africa by Europe? NO. When did the USA become involved with Africa? Only when the Europeans successfully seduced us into saving their butts in two world wars, did we lose our political virginity to Old Europe. Until then, we had no significant national interest in the African continent. So, "uplifting"Africa is a European problem. Let Europe stumble around in its own African petard. (OK, boys, a petard is an explosive gaseous device that blows down doors, here I mean Old Europe is now hurt by their own greediness, the way they treated the African continent for more than 200 years has blown up in their collective faces). By the way, petard is from the Latin, "peditum," a breaking of wind. Maybe I should have used that? Naw, couldn't do that, it'd be too scatological.

We go now to the Kyoto Treaty (the signers of which continue to pollute at record levels) and the attempt to suck us into signing an economic suicide treaty. The Kyoto Treaty would cause us to lose thousands of blue collar jobs by literally making it impossible for us to manufacture anything. If we signed, our worldwide competitors would keep the "compliance" spotlight solely on us, while they would continue polluting the earth, as they're doing now, in spades.

Here are some facts concerning our nation's air and water quality. Most Americans are influenced by doomsday computerized "models" (nonsense premise in, nonsense conclusion out) and journalists, who tend to portray our American environmental conditions as dire. They've falsely informed us that industrialization, population growth, and mass consumption have led to our air and water deteriorating, and ballyhoo the bogus claim that our resources will soon dry up. "The fact is that one of the greatest trends of the past 100 years has been the astonishing rate of progress in reducing almost every form of pollution" (from Julian Simon's "Hoodwinking the Nation," (New Jersey: Transaction, 1999).

Former Vice President Al Gore argued in his ghost written book, "Earth in the Balance," that we have been mortgaging our environmental future through our "mindless pursuit of economic growth." Fact is, economic growth has generally corresponded with improvements in the natural environment and the quality of our air and water. (U. S. Council on Environmental Quality, "Annual Report." Washington: Government Printing Office). Boils down to this, the more money we make the better we can afford pollution controls. Our affluence allows for a superior technology. Here's a well-researched fact: over the past hundred years we've become the world's leader in reducing almost every form of pollution. The national picture on air quality shows improvement for almost every type of pollution, especially carbo monoxide, sulfur, and lead. Lead concentrations have fallen by more than 90 per cent since 1976. The total volume of lead emissions was lower in 1990 than it was in the 1940's ("National Air Quality and Emissions Trends Report," Research Triangle Park, N. C.: EPA, OAQPS, 1996). Russia's huge and worsening pollution problems are the opposites to our successes. The communists went broke, from 70 years of "five-year plans" and "economic miracles."

Now, a word about our cleaner lakes, rivers and streams. According to the Pacific Research Institute's "Index of Leading Environmental Indicators," industrial water pollution has dived (is that a sickly pun, or a hopeless metaphor?). Organic wastes have fallen by 46 percent, toxic organics by 99 percent, and toxic metals by 98 percent. Remember when Lake Erie was in the international news for being on fire in downtown Cleveland? It was considered "dead" in 1970. Nowadays, Lake Erie has been yielding record fish catches and is routinely used for recreational purposes, but you'll never hear that on CNN, or via the BBC, or read it in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung," one of Germany's leading newspapers.

How are all those environmental successes possible in a country that won't surrender its economy to the Kyoto Treaty? Paul Johnson had the answer when he wrote, in "A History of the American People," that the Americans are the first, best hope of the human race. However, I'd add that we're also among history's biggest suckers. We've been propping up the world for over 60 years with our blood and money, and they hate us for it. When will we wake up?

Kenneth Kinchen is an independent writer with a background in international business and foreign service contracting.