Josh writes: It is extraordinary to think that Bjorn Lomborg first published The Sceptical Environmentalist 17 years ago in 1998 – that’s as long as The Pause!
However there has been no pause in some people ignoring his message as we have, rather depressingly, read on BishopHill over the weekend – see here and here.
It is really simple: the money we spend on Climate Change mitigation can be better spent on health, education and cheap energy. Why is this hard to understand? Do they think climate science is done in a moral vacuum? Can they not see that divesting from fossil fuels hurts the poor the most?
Incredible. (click image to enlarge)
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Almost by definition, all “green” ideas are wrong or stupid or both, or we would have been doing them already.
I teach my Environmental Science class that inside most individuals is a person who likes and values environment around them. We are thus all environmentalists as well as practical. We are just not radical environmentalists who use the environment to force others to bend to their will, in which case they cease to be environmentalists and become fascists.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
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We didn’t make the poor countries poor, they have always been poor. It’s not our fault.
It is our fault if we try to ensure they stay poor.
Nice cartoon with good use of color.
But I think there are many more social ills down at the bottom of the poverty barrel, led by desperation, violence, and crime but including alcoholism, drug abuse, and homelessness.
Many of the poor and/or homeless I see locally have tattoos, dogs, and are smoking cigarettes while they panhandle alongside their shopping-cart junk-wagons.
Adding to the problems of the poor in the United States, rental prices are shooting up. I doubt you’ll find many RE agents who give two hoots in hell about the poor.
Too many social ills for one drawing, I suppose, but Josh’s cartoon is right on target.
But the local authorities have banned plastic shopping bags, so that should help the poor, right?
You are thinking of the Western poor, the sort of people you might run into in any part of the United States, for example. On a global scale, those poor are still part of the 1%. That’s not the poor in Josh’s illustration. Josh’s poor can’t afford clean water, or fuel to cook their food and are more likely to eat the dog than keep it. Willis Eschenbach has an excellent essay floating about WUWT on this very topic. They can’t afford the sundry ills you describe.
Globally, 2 billion people lack improved sanitation. Over 4 million die prematurely from burning renewables such as dung and charcoal for cooking and heating. 300 million in India have no electricity. 600 million in Africa have no electricity. From Namibia north to Morocco and west to Madagascar and Zanzibar, it truly is the Dark Continent. 32 countries produce less per capita electricity than North Korea. Disease! Yellow fever tuberculosis, diphtheria, dengue fever, malaria, parasites from South America to Indonesia. But no. Stay in poverty and collapse the Western economies all for a political and radical environmental movement!!!
I would enjoy the cartoon more if I knew what AIIB was.
Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Infrastructure_Investment_Bank
@Madman2001 china’s answer to the IMF. Great cartoon Josh
how are “the poor” going to pay for electricity to cook?
how is the power going to reach the isolated communities?
A group of 20 households all cooking/heating with electricity requires a hefty supply current = high voltage line and transformer – who pays?
Who protects the power lines to remote villages? And who pays for their services?
Local generation? where’s the cooling water for steam that drive turbines?
Of more use and a lot cheaper is low power for lighting, phones, laptops from solar and batteries – a much cheaper option.
Dung is free wood is free the poor need proper cooking apparatus with chimneys. This is how sensible people aid the poor.
Power hungry industry cannot be sustained in villages – by lakes coast perhaps. And of course the poor can then move to the industry and of course remain poor!
Yeah well. How do you expect AlGore to get richer helping the poor?
Get your priorities straight. Silly.
sergeiMK makes a good point. If the utility is not paid for the electricity it generates, even the AIIB will look askance at requests for assistance to build dams or coal fired power stations, if there is no return on infrastructure investment. In India, there is much too much corruption & far too many thieves. Do you you see any electricity meters in these photos?
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=electrical+connections+in+India&rlz=1C1CHFX_en-GBGB547GB547&espv=2&biw=1162&bih=577&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=3M1JVfCfOIPYavSXgIAO&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&dpr=1.65
At present, about a third of India’s electricity is lost each year. It just never gets billed. Some is stolen or disappears because of technical problems. Honesty & altruism are seen as weaknesses to be exploited in many third world countries. That’s not our culture for now, but with uncontrolled immigration, that mind set could develop & cause the collapse of the very society to which illegal, benefits seeking migrants clamour for admission. They will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
http://blogs.worldwatch.org/revolt/what-do-indias-recent-electricity-sector-reforms-mean-for-renewable-energy/
The Guardian today is claiming that investment funds which divest from carbon fuels do better. They want Bill Gates to lead the world away from carbon.
Josh,
Your cartoons are getting very edgy of late
John