COLUMN RIGHT : Earth Summit Is Just a Ruse to Rob the Rich : Blaming the West for Third World pollution is extortion; Bush should stay home.

President Bush is under considerable pressure to attend the United Nations-sponsored Earth Summit in Brazil early in June. He should pluck up the courage to say no , even if some of the pressure is coming from within his own Administration, notably William Reilly, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

It is estimated that the conference will bring representatives of 160 countries and maybe 40,000 participants to Brazil. Taxpayers will be picking up the tab one way and another. To the National Audubon Society, this will be “the most important meeting in the history of mankind.” Maurice Strong, a conference organizer and a senior U.N. official from Canada says the conference is the last chance to avert “the environmental crisis which threatens the collapse of the planet.”

Some environmentalists really do want a cleaner environment. Others (and they will be running the show at Rio) want to remake the world. President Bush played into their hands when he said he wanted to be the “environmental President.” Now he has a choice: Sign on to draconian but unnecessary policies, or face accusations of being indifferent to the environment. Within the United States there are few serious environmental problems. Those that do exist are mostly created by government policy rather than private business. Agricultural price supports and very low prices have encouraged the wasteful use of water in the West, for example.

By far the most serious environmental problems are found in Third World and former communist countries. But the underlying purpose of the conference will be to blame the West for the world’s pollution. The West has most of the economic growth, and pollution is proportional to growth, runs the spurious argument. Therefore we should impose limits on our own growth by “stabilizing” energy use, reducing carbon-dioxide output by 20% or more, taxing the consumption of energy and putting the proceeds into a fund that shall be transferred to the Third World.

The redistributionist agenda is familiar. In the 1970s, under the rubric of the New International Economic Order, Western countries were accused of imperialism, and by way of reparations cash transfers were sought. “Third World kleptocrats now view the U.N. Conference as the vehicle to reconstitute this scheme under the guise of ecology,” says Fred Singer, director of the Science and Environmental Policy Project in Washington.

There’s a question whether the conference has any scientific basis at all. The environmental scare that has captured most attention is global warming, supposedly induced by the increase of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases.” In fact, there has been an increase of 0.5 degree centigrade since 1890. A survey of U.S. atmospheric scientists found “no consensus about the cause of the slight warming.” Since 1940 (which is when the carbon dioxide increase has occurred) there has been no global warming at all. Projected temperature increases in the years ahead lack any scientific basis, and the slight increase that might have occurred can be viewed as beneficial. “It would increase nighttime temperatures, causing fewer frosts and a longer growing season, and also increase precipitation,” says Singer.

Not so long ago we were being warned about global cooling. This alone should alert us that we are confronted not with pure science but with highly politicized findings; a form of activity that gives new meaning to the phrase political science. All this might be harmless enough if viewed as an academic exercise. But the rush to impose global regulations could have a serious impact on the world economy, especially on the standard of living in the Third World countries whose governments (rather than peoples) will be the beneficiaries of reparation payments.

Fred Smith of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an outspoken critic of the conference, says the problem is that these Third World leaders want capital without the accompanying capitalism. But as long as they are unwilling to reform their political institutions--in particular by establishing private property and the rule of law--they will continue to doom their subjects to impoverished lives within polluted environments and denuded landscapes. Giving them money will only postpone the needed reforms.

President Bush seems to understand none of this. He accepts the efficacy of aid without question; and he has already capitulated in principle (if not yet with huge dollar amounts) by making token contributions to the U.N. bodies set up to extract resources from Western taxpayers. Bush should say no to Brazil, turn the ensuing uproar against those of his political opponents who try to capitalize on it and pay attention to more serious problems at home.