Guest essay by Eric Worrall
If climate change is predicted to hit “poor people” worse than “rich people”, then why aren’t green efforts focussed on helping poor people overcome their poverty?
It has long been expected that poor people would bear the brunt of climate change, largely because so many more of the world’s poorest live in tropical latitudes whereas, wealthier people tend to live in more temperate regions.
This is inverse to the generally accepted responsibility for climate change, which falls mainly on rich countries that benefited early on from industry, and thus have historically high emissions, compared with poorer countries that have only begun catching up in the past few decades.
It was only in 2014 that China’s per capita emissions caught up with those of people in the EU, even after years of above-average economic growth in China.
Those living in the poorest countries also have the most to lose, as so many depend on agriculture, which is likely to be badly affected by temperature rises and an increase in droughts, heatwaves and potential changes to rainfall that may lead to recurrent patterns of floods, droughts and higher intensity storms.
The suggestion that poor people will be hit by climate change, the implicit assumption they will be unable to adapt, in my opinion intrinsically embraces the old colonialist justifications for interfering in the affairs of others – an unspoken assumption that poor mostly non-white people are somehow less capable than the majority white inhabitants of rich countries, and need to be saved from their own unassailable mediocrity.
China rose from abject poverty to world economic superpower in just a few decades, without outside help. I remember when people spoke of Chinese imports with barely concealed contempt, a byword for shoddy quality and poor workmanship. Nowadays businesses turn to China for their manufacturing expertise. There is nothing lacking in the ability of Chinese people to improve their personal circumstances – all they needed was for their government to get out of the way.
There is no reason why other poor people can’t do the same.
If you truly believe poor people will be hit hardest by climate change, stop treating poor people as victims. Find low cost ways to help poor people help themselves, such as eliminating trade barriers. See if there are ways of eliminating other unnecessary impediments to development, such as economically damaging roadblocks to building affordable energy infrastructure.
Stop treating poor people as an intractable group of stupids, who are incapable of improving their own lives, incapable of aspiring to wealth on a par with the privileged columnists who seek to assuage their consumerist angst, by wallowing in the perceived misery of others.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
This is pretty funny since in reality tropical regions would have the smallest temperature change as a result of a global increase in temperatures…
we’ve seen better times:
http://rlv.zcache.be/de_cent_van_fugio_let_op_uw_stuiver_bedrijfs_van_h_zandsteen_onderzetter-r04c77ba49b6e4415bff4ebfbf860181b_x7ke3_1024.jpg
I’m surprised nobody has noticed this part of the study…
“This study is the first to use climate models to simulate the end-to-end link between cumulative CO2 emissions and people experiencing more frequent hot days.”
The team used state-of-the-art climate models to estimate cumulative CO2 emissions and subsequent changes to extreme local daily temperatures over the 20th and 21st century.
From:
Poor countries to bear brunt of climate change
https://www.uea.ac.uk/about/-/poor-countries-to-bear-brunt-of-climate-change-despite-emitting-least-co2
Cam S. Good catch, it is model projections. If you actually analyze the data using the Koppen climate zones, you see there is very little climate change going on, and not especially where poor people live.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2016/05/17/data-vs-models-4-climates-changing/
“For the [Chinese] government to get out of their way”? Um… no, not exactly. True, after Mao and his buddies stopped pulling such stunts as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution — once when they were safely dead or drooling in their opulent palaces after retiring from government “service” — the next generation of ChiCom managers organized a government-organized and -run economy. True, it was organized in such a way in which some individuals would be able to become very, very rich but, for the most part, the economy was organized around state-secured mega-corporations. The PLA (People’s Liberation Army) is the largest shareholder in the economy, followed by various internal government organizations. Even the “privately” owned corporations have to kick back major profits to the government (“Nice growth industry you’ve got there. Shame if your CEO were to suddenly get shot or something. Hur-hur-hur….”) And, then, there is the whole issue of rampant, venal, viral, institutional theft of Western technology by the PLA and other state-run bureaus. Once acquired, that stolen information — even complete plans and technology — is “shared” (for a fee, of course) with Chinese corporations. Sorry, but the Chinese economy is based on totalitarianism, oppression and theft. Rot in hell, Mao.
When I saw the headline I thought this was going to be about Piers Corbyn
I believe the arms-length romaticism of greens, that “local” produce is best, cities bad, development bad, primitive people more in touch with nature, gives them a clear conscience when they try to stop development (eg by preventing power plants from being built), because after all, the undeveloped world is really more “pure” and the people happier than us corrupted westerners. So this “sustainable” meme is a big deal for Greens who imagine, without asking the locals what the prefer, that a remote village in Africa is more “sustainable”. Witness how sad they are that development will “ruin” Cuba!!! How in a hurry they are to visit Cuba (like Chicago mayor) before it is “ruined”. Of course they have not had to live without clean water and with no electricity…
The Greens and the UN are symbiotic but have different agendas. Without the Greens the UN would have no soldiers. Without the UN the Greens would have no global support. What I find alarming is how the rest of the world lets this combined small minority effectively control their lives. For now anyway.
“why aren’t green efforts focussed on helping poor people overcome their poverty?”
Oh, they are. The UNFCCC keeps asking for countries to describe their climate suffering, and they keep including poverty alleviation as a priority. Certainly, they’ll do [laundry list of climate and leftist projects] but reducing poverty is a priority.
What a strange article. A large part of why a majority of people in the world support going for renewables is that the fossil fuel industry has had an incredibly negative effect on the countries in which it fossil fuels are found (the well known ‘dutch disease’, but also just the general insane levels of corruption associated with fossil fuels). Getting rid of fossil fuels is one of the best things you can do for third and second world countries. To have mr. Worral twist the argument in such a way is.. very interesting to read!
Cheers
Ben
Only on your planet, ben. Your view of reality is a twisted one. Very interesting indeed.
Ben’s point is very valid, I don’t understand how you can dismiss it out of hand. Normally governments can only “make” money from taxes on individuals and corporations, or bribes paid to secure government approvals and contracts. There is still clearly room for corruption, but the scale is somewhat limited. When a country has major oil and natural gas resources, the potential for skimming & bribes goes up substantially. This is the case in the Middle East, South America, Africa and Asia in the oil rich countries. The presence of oil does not necessarily create a corrupt environment (it may well have existed before) but the scale of $$ that is taken out by those in charge goes up exponentially.
Bruce Cobb,
benben and Chris appear to be from the same planet. I think Algore helped them get here.
(benben = Kal-El)
Another content-free post from DB.
ah, so only on my planet are the governments of venezuela, russia, nigeria, the assorted arab countries etc. a kleptocratic mess? Please do elaborate Bruce!
Just a fact free ‘your view of reality is twisted’ doesn’t cut it when you want to pretend that the fossil fuel industry has, as a whole, been a positive development for poor countries!
bobo, in everyone of your examples, the corrupt organizations have been the governments of those countries.
I don’t have to “pretend” anything. Your grasp on reality is indeed tenuous.
How do you manage to dress yourself?
MarkW ‘the corrupt organizations have been the governments of those countries.’
THANK YOU! You beat me to it.
You forgot Zimbabwe.Once called Rhodesia, it was the food-basket of southern Africa.
It’s like the old Soviet joke:
“Where were you born?”
“St. Petersburg.”
“Where did you educated?”
“Petrograd.”
“Where did you work?”
“Leningrad.”
“Where do you want to retire?”
“St. Petersburg.”
Yes, your point being…? Ah, I see, you think that somehow in these countries governments and oil are magically separated from each other. Well. Easily falsifiable beliefs.
Cheers,
Ben
It’s known as ‘the resource curse’, see below:
“Russia is often thought to be a classic case of the resource curse—the idea that natural resource wealth tends to impair democratic development. Some see the country as doomed to authoritarian politics by its enormous endowments of oil and gas. “Russia’s future will be defined as much by the geology of its subsoil as by the ideology of its leaders,” writes Moisés Naím, editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine and former trade and industry minister of petroleum-rich Venezuela. “A lot of oil combined with weak public institutions produces poverty, inequality, and corruption. It also undermines democracy.” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman sees a close relationship between world commodity prices and the extent of liberty in resource-rich states: a higher oil price means less freedom. Friedman suggests that Russia, from Gorbachev to Putin, fits this relationship perfectly.”
http://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/russia-cursed-oil/
Under common law of the classical liberal variety, resources underground were property of the fee owners of the surface. Hence, Texas, Pennsylvania, Olahoma, and California, among others, prospered under rule of law and decent dispute resolution mechanisms because of and not despite resource riches. In the progressive and social democracy era, states claim such ownership “for the people” or some such and/or prohibit extraction with what is called regulation but for heavy tolls. States being states always increase the skim and state actors take their cut. Tolls and skims invite corruption. They are also corrupt alone. By what right does the State claim authority over this property, after all? If the resources were privately owned and administered such mischief would be much less possible or worthwhile. If it’s for the people, let them put it into a trust administered by a proper trustee and distribute beneficial interests to each person, without regard to wealth or vote buying opportunities. Fat chance, but it’s not the fault of resourcess. They are just Nature’s bounty there for those clever enough to figure out how to use them.
To promote products which are costly and which no one would willingly use on the backs of people with tricky tax finance schemes and skims and which knowingly would not solve the problem claimed for such promotion, such as renewables, is corrupt on its face.
I love the way liberals actually believe that governments are pure, unless they are corrupted by evil businesses.
I see that benben admits that the problem is not the oil companies, but corrupt local governments.
It truly is fascinating how leftists blame the flaws of govt on corporations.
It’s almost as if they really do believe that government can do no wrong.
What I have the hardest time with is the idea that the way to combat corruption is to place all power in the hands of government – where total power corrupts totally.
Corruption is a constant – wherever there is power, there are those who will abuse it. But moving from private enterprise to government control is going from the frying pan into the fire – a position endorsed mostly by those who have had no experience with how bad things get (and how fast) under authoritarian leadership – and since so much moral credibility these days is associated with victimhood, they posture and complain over perceived imperfections of a lifestyle that has allowed them more comfort and freedom than almost the totality of humanity has ever experienced. It’s the complaint of a spoiled child trying to feel sorry for himself.
The solution to corruption is to make power more diffuse.
Corrupt businesses will be out competed by non-corrupt businesses.
Corrupt governments just become more corrupt.
MarkW, you hit the nail on the head, as the saying goes. Fossil fuels are incredibly concentrated forms of wealth, hence they breed corruption and abuse of power. Renewables are diffuse, and thus the power structure that goes with a renewable energy system is much less susceptible to abuse of governmental power.
Glad we agree 😉
Fossil fuels are incredibly concentrated forms of wealth, hence they breed corruption and abuse of power.
Total non-sequitur. A typical ‘Say Anything’ fallacy.
In fact, there is more official corruption in windmills and solar than in all fossil fuel production.
Wow DB, just wow. We’ve been sparring for a while and and comments like these leave me curious as to who you actually are. Not like name address etc. but, are you a retired old angry white guy? Are you a 15 year old? Do you get your news exclusively through facebook?
How would you describe yourself DB?
Cheers,
Ben
db- benito is taking a leaf from the bible ‘money is the root of all evil’
which, being as how money is the token representation of human values, is purely anti-human.
like so many young persons with no experience, benito craves meaning and purpose.
unfortunately, he’s suffering from emophilia, which is a common way for the impotent to persuade themselves that they are relevant. any sort of drama attracts this kind of person. therefore his unspoken credo is ‘I troll, therefore I am’
he’ll probably outgrow it, as adulthood looms and taking responsibility for his subsistence forces its way into his metaphysics. reality tends to push out stupidity- the reverse of gresham’s law – unless there is a protective bubble to shield oneself from it and victims to pay the expenses that such insulation requires.
he’s just a lost child fearful that his mind is inadequate for his own survival – and proving it daily until it finally hurts enough to quit.
benben,
Read gnomish’s comment. He’s describing you.
And:
How would you describe yourself DB?
Mature, and a clear thinker. Pretty much an anti-benben.
Thanx for asking.
“In fact, there is more official corruption in windmills and solar than in all fossil fuel production.”
Evidence to back up that assertion?
Evidence: multi-$BILLIONS in subsidies for those energy scams.
Any other questions, Mr Naive N. Credulous?
Poor bobo, he actually believes that we are agreeing.
It’s not concentrated wealth that is the problem, it’s concentrated power.
As always, his solution to every problem is to give even more power to an already corrupt government.
gnomish, that’s a common liberal lie. The Bible says that the LOVE of money is the root of all evil. It says nothing whatsoever about money itself being evil.
“Evidence: multi-$BILLIONS in subsidies for those energy scams.”
Subsidies are not corruption. You might disagree with them, but they are not corruption.
Subsidies are corruption when companies contribute money to legislators in a quid-pro-quo for laws giving them enormous windmill subsidies. That’s clear to all but the most naive and credulous.
“Subsidies are corruption when companies contribute money to legislators in a quid-pro-quo for laws giving them enormous windmill subsidies.”
Another in a long line of DB assertions without any supporting evidence.
Total lobbying for Vestas (America), one of the top 3 wind turbine mfrs globally? $100K: http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000058229 Lobbying and political contributions for Exxon? Just under $15M. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000129
yeah, right… exports of saudi arabian products took a nosedive when oil was discovered there… wait…
um…
oh! got it – when the soviet union started pumping oil, suddenly corruption ensued… wait…
ah- when american minining and coal sought to ‘corner the market’ on energy and unintentionally gave birth to the oil industry – the only thing that saved america was the Sherman Anti-trust Act… or…
um – oh, yeah- the venezuelan landscape has been destroyed by petroleum prospectors who ate all the trees… hmm…
ok- the dutch! yeah- they got dutch disease from oil. wait…. that was gas… but anyway- having something valuable to sell made their currency stronger so exports became expensive (the tulip trade suffered a death blow) and imports became cheap as everybody got rich. wealth is a disease – but economists were able to hold the country together by treating it with leeches, the preferred treatment.
so it’s not just oil- it’s wealth per se.
thanks benito!
the more i know of people, the more i love my dog, Benno. (goebbels)
‘Renewables are diffuse, and thus the power structure that goes with a renewable energy system is much less susceptible to abuse of governmental power.’
That is a totally ridiculous statement.
Okay, you’ve got your attention, go back under your bridge little troll.
I see the skeptics here don’t like it when someone appears in their little safe space with a different opinion :p
“Safe space”?? That’s projection.
I’ve been banned from hotwhopper and skepticalscience — the latter for simply posting a data-based graph, with no comment.
Those are ‘safe spaces’ for the small alarmist clique. I note that you post here quite a lot. No one censors your juvenile opinions. You just don’t like the fact that you’re about the only one who believes your nonsense.
[Deleted. Impostor/ID thief. -mod]
Ha-Ha! The ^site pest^ lasted a few minutes before the mods snipped him. Another wasted effort. ☺
[His last comment lasted less than that. More wasted effort. -mod]
[Another sockpuppet. Into the bit bucket with you, fraudster. -mod]
Having an opinion isn’t bad. Not being able to back up your opinion with anything approaching a logical argument and real world facts is.
benben says:
Getting rid of fossil fuels is one of the best things you can do for third and second world countries.
Why don’t we ask them, benben?
And if anyone needed confirmation that you’re nuts, that statement would provide conclusive evidence.
Like most liberals, bobo believes that having money is a bad thing.
Like most liberals, bobo believes that having money is a bad thing.
He believes that other folks having money is wrong.
But like all liberals, benben will never turn down money himself.
“Stop treating poor people as an intractable group of stupids”
That’s pretty much the left wing opinion on anyone who doesn’t work for government.
Eric,
You must not be familiar with the famous saying about lefty. Lefty loves the poor so much he wants to make sure they are always around. I think history and experience proves the validity of that saying.
I do not subscribe to the view that poorer nations will be worse off due to climate change.
Some of the luckier of the world’s poor live in shanty towns in houses made from any kind of scrap materials they could find. Come the apocalypse, they will set off into the countryside with their single bag of belongings and re-build their shanty towns on higher ground.
The richer nations, on the other hand will be in deep whatnot. Moving London or New York, for instance, will be a disaster. How could you re-house that number of people in anywhere near the manner in which they had become accustomed? How could you move that number of people at all?
The other point is that most activist enviros do not really care about the poor. They expect others to, though. That way the poor can be cynically used as bargaining counters. For instance, who could refuse to pay a carbon tax when the proceeds go to the poor? Strangely, they always omit the number of grasping hands that will cream off a cut on the way. That would be themselves, of course.
So-called Social Justice is just one way in which they have tried to blackmail the rich into parting with their money. If all the money would go to the poor that would be one thing but I can’t help but think that many of the well-off will need to extract some in passing. That is why carbon taxes need to be so huge. A few hundred $million might then go missing en route and no-one would care.
graphicconception wrote: “So-called Social Justice is just one way in which they have tried to blackmail the rich into parting with their money.” Think much, much larger. It’s trillions, multiplied. If Our Dear Leader Obama is to believed, the goal of the United States government — and the EU — is to transfer the wealth of the Western world to the poor nations because justice, or something.
There is, at its basis, the idea that wealth is a zero-sum game: If X country has a certain amount of wealth, it much make Y country poorer. (I must admit that, on a daily basis, I send emails to West Africa and scam villagers to send me their cornmeal in return for promises that I’ll transfer secret, hidden assets to their bank accounts. Just for full disclosure.)
To paraphrase J. Goebbels, every time I hear “it’s for the poor” or “think of the children” I hide my wallet and grab my sidearm. Not because I hate either group — my wife and I routinely donate more money per year than Our Dear Leader does to Christian charities (the only ones that actually make a difference) — but I would rather pile up a raft of cash and set it on fire rather than send it to UNICEF.
Acts 17:26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, (Act 17:26 KJV)
We all were born into the same boat, of the same blood, of the same life.
“Racism” is just an excuse for one group to think that their blood is superior to another’s or to seek revenge on some past group that thought so of their group.
The truth is that we all share the same life.
(I just quoted the Bible. In the Bible, that blood is incredibly corrupt. But He provided the cleanse.)
No one is intrinsically superior or inferior to another.
“Racism” is an artificial division between people that are in the same boat.
“China rose from abject poverty to world economic superpower in just a few decades, without outside help.” In a recent speech by the Chinese Trade Minister he noted that China has been the global number one recipient of foreign investment for the past 21 consecutive years!
I am a collector of vintage political & economic texts. In many, US oligarchs, a few still living today, are frank in their plans to make China a major part of “global governance”. Today’s speeches by Chinese officials, in which they enthuse about the emerging system, are never carried by the MSM, but are available online.
China has been massively aided by the West via investment, technology transfer– even the transfer of enormous R & D facilities. Not to mention much of US mfg jobs.
Penelope commented: “..China has been massively aided by the West via investment, technology transfer– even the transfer of enormous R & D facilities. Not to mention much of US mfg jobs…”
+1 The West handed them the ability to compete. It started with “outsourcing” in the 80’s and went as far as providing all the technology and management for an entire semiconductor industry from start to finish. At the sake of sounding conspiratorial…..why did we do that? We were conned into it is the simple answer.
The west was looking for cheaper manufacturing. Taiwan used to make a lot of things and ‘made in Taiwan’ was a label for something crap. Then costs rose and the manufacturing shifted to China while Taiwan raised its quality, went into semi-conductors big time and is now a quality label. China is still about a lot of cheap crap and copies of western goods but their costs are rising so manufacturing is coming back or looking for the next cheap country.
One word, patents. Those “approved” sustainable methods are all patented in the rich nations already, get the I-phone picture?
If sustainability along with the needed economic incentives were the goal, patent and copyright laws should be reduced to no more than 2 years across the boards.
Only China right now is currently allowed to violate certain laws, and how they were “helped”
It’s an example of the soft bigotry of low expectations.