African Development Bank decides not to fund Kenya coal project

From Reuters

Sustainable Business

November 13, 2019 / 6:00 AM / Updated 15 hours ago

Alexander Winning

  • JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – The African Development Bank (AfDB) will not fund a coal-fired power plant project in Kenya and has no plans to finance new coal plants in future, senior AfDB officials told Reuters.

    FILE PHOTO: African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwumi Adesina speaks to press after a meeting of the board in Abidjan, Ivory Coast October 31, 2019. REUTERS/Thierry Gouegnon/File Photo

    The Abidjan-based lender published an environmental and social impact assessment in May for the Lamu project, which was planned near a UNESCO World Heritage Site but which was halted by a local environmental tribunal.

    The project to build a 1,050 megawatt plant in eastern Kenya was backed by Kenyan and Chinese investors. Construction was originally planned to start in 2015.

    Dozens of top banks, insurers and development finance institutions are restricting coal investments, as climate activists and investors voice growing concerns about the impact of burning fossil fuels, particularly coal.

    AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina told Reuters at a conference in South Africa the bank took environmental concerns seriously and was focusing on renewable energy, adding that coal projects risked becoming “stranded assets” on the AfDB’s balance sheet.

  • Full article here.

    HT/Willie Soon

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    Sunny
    November 15, 2019 2:29 am

    Oh well, time to cover africa in solar panels and wind generators…

    griff
    Reply to  Sunny
    November 15, 2019 4:42 am

    Kenya already is… and geothermal.

    Kenya has started a World Bank funded programme to provide all citizens with electricity.

    https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/12/06/kenya-launches-ambitious-plan-to-provide-electricity-to-all-citizens-by-2022

    I note this says:
    “With the help of the geospatial tool, the strategy has identified least-cost options for bringing electricity to households and businesses throughout the country. The strategy recognizes the key role played by off-grid options, mini-grids and stand-alone solar systems that complement grid extension and intensification.”

    See also:
    https://constructionreviewonline.com/2018/10/kenya-launches-its-second-largest-wind-power-project/

    Patrick MJD
    Reply to  griff
    November 15, 2019 7:40 am

    What the heck is a “geospatial tool”?

    John Q Public
    Reply to  Patrick MJD
    November 15, 2019 8:41 am

    aka “satellite”

    Reply to  John Q Public
    November 15, 2019 12:18 pm

    Or a map.
    ‘Chart’ on a ship.

    Auto
    Translator First Class of Bureau-speak [aka BS]
    University of Chipping Sodbury

    Reply to  Patrick MJD
    November 15, 2019 3:44 pm

    What the heck is a “geospatial tool”?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spatial_analysis_software

    Reply to  Patrick MJD
    November 15, 2019 3:56 pm

    Here are some geospatial tools more closely suited to siting wind and solar generation:

    https://www.nrel.gov/gis/tools.html

    Patrick MJD
    Reply to  griff
    November 15, 2019 7:48 am

    Impressive websites. Any actual videos of this stuff installed and functioning?

    I didn’t think so.

    I could just ask my Kenyan friends to check it out and report back.

    Curious George
    Reply to  Patrick MJD
    November 15, 2019 3:06 pm

    From the World Bank link: “The Electrification Strategy will deploy geospatial technology to develop a mechanism that provides objective planning data.” They intend to develop flawless plans, not to provide power to anybody. (Note, this is a December 2018 press release.)

    Patrick MJD
    Reply to  Curious George
    November 15, 2019 5:53 pm

    That’s my take on it too.

    Michael Jankowski
    Reply to  griff
    November 15, 2019 11:46 am

    “…Kenya has started a World Bank funded programme to provide all citizens with electricity…”

    So then why did they need this coal plant?

    chemman
    Reply to  griff
    November 15, 2019 3:18 pm

    I live off-grid in Arizona. Off grids options are worthless for tropical climates. You need to get a clue.

    Reply to  chemman
    November 15, 2019 4:23 pm

    “I live off-grid in Arizona. Off grids options are worthless for tropical climates. You need to get a clue.”

    Kenya’s climate isn’t tropical throughout. Away from the coast there are places where solar insolation is not much worse (say 10-20 percent less) than Phoenix.

    Latitude
    Reply to  Sunny
    November 15, 2019 5:59 am

    ..no problem….China will step up and fund it all

    Curious George
    Reply to  Latitude
    November 15, 2019 3:00 pm

    They have Kenyan and Chinese investors – what was the role of the African Development Bank? Probably to avoid “stranded assets”, forget the “Development”.

    Johann Wundersamer
    Reply to  Sunny
    November 24, 2019 4:31 pm

    “griff November 15, 2019 at 4:42 am

    [ ] Kenya has started a World Bank funded programme to provide all citizens with electricity.

    https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/12/06/kenya-launches-ambitious-plan-to-provide-electricity-to-all-citizens-by-2022

    I note this says:

    “[ ] The strategy recognizes the key role played by off-grid options, mini-grids and stand-alone solar systems that complement grid extension and intensification.””

    ________________________________________________

    griff, you’re offending the intelligence of “3rd world people”.

    Trebla
    November 15, 2019 2:36 am

    Somebody should send this guy a picture of stranded wind turbines in the U.S.

    griff
    Reply to  Trebla
    November 15, 2019 4:44 am

    That old fake news story?

    Reply to  griff
    November 15, 2019 8:28 am

    griff, ironic, since your whole mindset is apparently based on fake news.

    John Endicott
    Reply to  beng135
    November 15, 2019 9:47 am

    As is usual with lefties like griff, the projection is obvious.

    John Endicott
    Reply to  griff
    November 15, 2019 9:46 am

    Keep telling yourself that, griff, still won’t change the facts of the matter.

    The Kamaoa Hawaii wind farm sat abandoned for half-a-dozen years before it was eventually torn down and sold as scrap to china.

    Tehachapi California alone is estimated to have up to 4,000 defunct/abandoned turbines

    In Altamont, California, approximately 5,000 wind turbines were installed in the early 1980s a number of the aged turbines in the Altamont area, with their telltale lattice-work towers, still exists, abandoned and rotting away.

    And that’s just three locations in the US.

    chemman
    Reply to  John Endicott
    November 15, 2019 3:20 pm

    You can add the Palm Springs area of S. California to that list.

    Reply to  John Endicott
    November 15, 2019 8:17 pm

    Tehachapi California alone is estimated to have up to 4,000 defunct/abandoned turbines.

    How many turbines are there, in total?

    Reply to  John Endicott
    November 17, 2019 8:01 am

    Tehachapi California alone is estimated to have up to 4,000 defunct/abandoned turbines

    The best estimate I can find for the total number of turbines at Tehachapi is 4,731. Needless to say, “up to 4,000” of them are not “defunct/abandoned”!

    https://clui.org/ludb/site/tehachapi-wind-farm

    The best estimate I can find for “defunct/abandoned” turbines at Tehachapi is between 100 and a couple hundred.

    https://www.bakersfield.com/news/business/wind-kickin-up-in-tehachapi-idle-turbines-at-center-of/article_801a1ff0-0d59-5d59-af49-3431036091ac.html

    BCBill
    Reply to  griff
    November 15, 2019 10:07 am

    It is not an easy thing to make windfarms go away when they reach the end of their short productive lifespans. (https://www.nantonnews.com/news/local-news/new-method-of-decommissioning-wind-turbine-concrete-bases-with-water-jets)

    Patrick MJD
    Reply to  griff
    November 15, 2019 7:51 pm

    Plenty of fake news at the Guardian you frequently link to. In fact, many of the links you post shows you don’t actually read them.

    November 15, 2019 2:44 am

    So Africa is about to go in debt to China instead. The Chinese extract their payment in resources. In Kenya’s case that’s probably bad news for rhinos.

    LdB
    November 15, 2019 2:56 am

    So it guarantees Kenya will remain disadvantaged, SJW agenda has some interesting outcomes :-).

    Patrick MJD
    Reply to  LdB
    November 15, 2019 3:15 am

    Exactly! Kenya and the rest of the continent. Disgraceful, but not a surprise. Most banks now will not fund a coal/gas fired project ANYWHERE outside China.

    Greg
    Reply to  Patrick MJD
    November 15, 2019 4:30 am

    But SJWs are soooo concerned about brown people, how can they allow ( cause ) this to happen. Is Kenya just a bit too brown maybe. Africa will grow rapidly if we don’t hold them back. I guess the SJW position is : keep them in the ground ( digging for cobalt with their bare fingers ).

    Save the planet: keep them in the dark.

    Gamecock
    Reply to  Greg
    November 15, 2019 4:44 am

    Colonialism.

    SJWs are saying, “We know better than you.”

    Adam
    Reply to  Greg
    November 15, 2019 6:21 am

    If there isn’t going to be growth in a Africa because of stupid, they will be forced to head for Europe (or Australia or the US). Once they arrive, their “carbon footprints” will be massively larger than had they stayed in Africa.

    Also, we know that faster economic growth eventually has a dampening effect on fertility. No energy means no growth means larger families. That, of course, means more environmental destruction in Africa. Again, stupid.

    DocSiders
    Reply to  Adam
    November 15, 2019 8:35 am

    Populations are declining fastest everywhere in the world that urbanization is happening…including Africa.

    https://youtu.be/SYZPTaV-RcQ

    Urbanization requires energy development.

    World population GROWTH has actually been in decline…and is in actual decline in every First World nation.

    John Endicott
    Reply to  Adam
    November 15, 2019 10:08 am

    World population GROWTH has actually been in decline…and is in actual decline in every First World nation.

    yes and no,

    Yes *first* world population growth has been in decline. Fertility rates in the first world are below replacement rate. In fact the fertility of half of the world’s population is already below the replacement ratio. However, the fertility of the rest of the other half still more than makes up for it. Given the current level of mortality the global replace fertility is 2.3 while the global average fertility rate is currently 2.5. Since 2.5 is greater than 2.3 the world’s population is still increasing, though should rates continue to fall the world over, it won’t be long before world population decide actually does begin.

    in 2015 the world population was approx 7.349 billion as of Oct 2019 the world population is approx. 7.738 billion. (an increase of approx. 0.389 billion over the past 4 years). At the rate fertility rates are declining, while the world may reach 8 billion, it’s unlikely to reach 9 billion.

    Russ Wood
    Reply to  Greg
    November 17, 2019 3:49 am

    “Save the planet: keep them in the dark.”
    That (from a South African perspective) doesn’t even need the World Bank to get involved. The SA monopoly electricity supplier is legally bankrupt, and needs billions of taxpayers’ money to keep going. This is amplified by the problem of corruption (huge amounts of money stolen and transferred out of the country), and the almost total lack of preventative maintenance, which results in “unplanned breakdowns” (as opposed to PLANNED breakdowns). There are some appalling stories being published about the ways that working power stations, inherited from the ‘Apartheid’ government, are no longer functioning. Rolling blackouts (‘load shedding’) are becoming more frequent, and breakdowns of the electricity distribution systems within cities is increasing.

    Original Mike M
    Reply to  LdB
    November 15, 2019 5:25 am

    But it is the outcome SJW’s want – a PERMANENT underclass to be kept economically dependent on them so they can continue to stroke their own massive egos while grabbing the natural resources of those countries under the table at the same time.

    Remember ~150 years ago when a world political body stepped in and stopped Europe, USA and many more emerging first world countries from benefiting from fossil fuels and the the industrial revolution? Me neither.

    Original Mike M
    Reply to  LdB
    November 15, 2019 5:28 am

    But it is the outcome SJW’s want – a PERMANENT underclass to be kept economically dependent on them so they can continue to stroke their own massive egos while grabbing the natural resources of those countries under the table at the same time.

    Remember ~150 years ago when a world political body stepped in and stopped Europe, USA and many more emerging first world countries from benefiting from fossil fuels and the the industrial revolution? Me neither.

    (I can’t tell if this a duplicate reply. If it is please delete.)

    Augustine O'Brien
    November 15, 2019 2:59 am

    The Kenyan government will go to the next obvious source of money – China – for a nice no strings loan.
    You just have to laugh at the stupidity of the western world.

    NorwegianSceptic
    November 15, 2019 3:15 am

    AfDB helping China buy their continent. Sounds sensible…..

    yarpos
    November 15, 2019 3:18 am

    Just another in a long list of decisions that has made sub Saharan Africa what it is today, and will keep it that way.

    aussiecol
    November 15, 2019 3:26 am

    So wheres the nuclear power plant going to supply their needed base load power supply then???

    Serge Wright
    November 15, 2019 3:33 am

    Looking at a wind farm on a calm day helps with the understanding of a stranded asset.

    M__ S__
    November 15, 2019 3:34 am

    It just means the coal will still be there when this “CO2 is the devil” insanity finally ends.

    Original Mike M
    Reply to  M__ S__
    November 15, 2019 7:52 am

    No, it also means yet another generation of thirsty poor people scratching their heads in disbelief when they hear of other places where cars are washed and even toilets flushed with perfectly good drinking water.

    Coeur de Lion
    November 15, 2019 3:37 am

    Warmly supported by the Synod of the Church of England. Gotta keep these people in low life expectation as required by David Attenborough.

    ToddF
    November 15, 2019 4:02 am

    If you were a white racist, wanting to keep Africa in the dark ages, what would you do different?

    Reply to  ToddF
    November 15, 2019 9:10 am

    More precisely, it’s what a BLIMP would do, British liberal imperialist (even if with American accents).
    The only African country with some industrial development is South Africa, directly threatened by Blimp green finance.
    Of course Blimps do not like China actually developing their partners.

    Henning Nielsen
    November 15, 2019 4:17 am

    Another example of anti-human climate fanaticism. These “crusaders” don’t have the guts or resources to go after the big coal consumers, so they pick on poor African nations. Shame on them, I wonder who has pushed the ABD to this extreme measure, not so long ago they were in favour of such projects. Someone must have threatened to cut their financing.

    griff
    Reply to  Henning Nielsen
    November 15, 2019 4:43 am

    See above where I have linked to Kenya’s plan to provide all citizens with electricity by 2022. With solar etc a key component

    Latitude
    Reply to  griff
    November 15, 2019 7:56 am

    solar is off grid….there are too many places in Kenya where grid is not an option…to remote/rural, terrorists, etc….they are doing solar, etc out of necessity not because of some greater good

    John Endicott
    Reply to  Latitude
    November 15, 2019 11:09 am

    That’s been pointed out to griff before. griff never learns, in one ear and out the other as the saying goes.

    Patrick MJD
    Reply to  griff
    November 15, 2019 7:16 pm

    It’s all well and good having plans or planning to do stuff for people, actually getting it done is a whole other matter. We here in Australia have councils that have 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 years plans, but nothing get’s done. Some council CEO’s (Why would a council have a CEO beats me?) are paid considerably more than the Prime Minister.

    Tim Spence
    November 15, 2019 4:21 am

    I wouldn’t advise costly infrastructure projects in Lamu until the encroachment of Somali Al shabaab militants is reversed.

    Rod Evans
    November 15, 2019 4:45 am

    Well, the world bank authorities have guaranteed the destruction of yet more African environment by this decision. The people will still chop down trees gather bush and generally clear the land of much needed green cover to enable them to cook and heat their huts. The next event will be starvation and desertification caused by overgrazing and tree cover loss.
    Hey ho, that is what the Green movement think is the way forward.

    ozspeaksup
    November 15, 2019 5:05 am

    news like this doesnt get TO the people who would have benefited most,
    then, also, prob neither has education enough either,
    to enable those who need to speak out, to be able to effectively.

    so who funds the ADB?? because its gotta be some banksters euro/uk/usa linkages

    November 15, 2019 5:09 am

    They’re taking their cue from the ADB (Asian Development Bank) I guess. But not to worry China will step in and fund them. Under Chinese terms of course. Kind of like what they did to Pakistan while funding the new seaport at Gwadar. And how they got the poor Cambodians to mortgage their country for a development loan.

    November 15, 2019 5:13 am

    Just stupid. Guaranteeing to keep Kenyans in the 3rd world.

    Renewable energy is not what they need, they need baseload to be able to develop their economy

    Does the African Development Bank also not fund nuclear power?

    Bananabender56
    November 15, 2019 5:33 am

    Senegal at least is toeing the line and installing wind turbines and solar panels – acres of them.

    Gus
    November 15, 2019 6:14 am

    Kenyans should turn to China for funding. Kenya is already actively engaged in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The Chinese are currently building the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway, at a cost of US$3.2 billion. They can just as well throw in a coal-fired power plant to help electrify the railway.

    Patrick MJD
    Reply to  Gus
    November 15, 2019 6:21 am

    The Chinese are all over the east coast of Africa like a rash.

    Reply to  Patrick MJD
    November 15, 2019 8:59 am

    The BLIMPS, British liberal imperialists, sure are itching for war.

    Patrick MJD
    Reply to  bonbon
    November 15, 2019 5:30 pm

    The British haven’t had any influence in Africa, Kenya, for many years. I know someone in Kenya, she is of the Kikyuyu tribe who, successfully, negotiated independence from Britain in 1963 IIRC. She actually lost several of her friends in the Islamist attacks a few years ago in Nairobi. If anyone is itching for war it’s not BLIMPs, Americans or the Chinese, it will likely be driven by internal tribal and religious bickering.

    Patrick MJD
    November 15, 2019 6:28 am

    Just wait until Ethiopia fully controls (It can now) down flows in to the Nile rivers when it’s dam comes fully online.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Ethiopian_Renaissance_Dam

    I usually don’t like to link to Wikipedia however in this case…

    “The turbines and associated electrical equipment of the hydropower plants costing about US$1.8 billion are reportedly financed by Chinese banks.”

    There you have it folks.

    From personal experience I know Chinese geologists were in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, back in 2006. Ethiopia will pay a price for this “investment”.

    MarkW
    November 15, 2019 7:16 am

    Then China steps in, funds the project and creates another African colony.

    DaveKeys
    Reply to  MarkW
    November 15, 2019 7:42 am

    China will build them a brand new coal fire power station. They will charge them a billion in US dollars and expect payment in US dollars. Kenya will of course fall behind in payments. So China will demand greater access for Chinese companies, land to grow food on. They will never pay off the debt. Cannot say Africans are stupid as they are also doing this stuff in Greece.

    Patrick MJD
    Reply to  DaveKeys
    November 15, 2019 6:26 pm

    In my experience, everything, internationally, is traded in US dollars in Africa. Local currency is converted to US$, then in to whatever currency you are trading in, say AU$, of course with the usual small % fee for doing so.

    The Chinese will import their workforce, locals won’t see any benefit from employment. This already happens in Ethiopia.

    Reply to  MarkW
    November 15, 2019 9:59 am

    Yes, there Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) will now step in with predatory lending. Kenya already is at risk of ceding its Mombassa Port to China over an unpaid BRI debt.
    https://www.npr.org/2018/10/08/641625157/a-new-chinese-funded-railway-in-kenya-sparks-debt-trap-fears

    Patrick MJD
    Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
    November 15, 2019 7:11 pm

    China now has a 99 year lease IIRC on an Australian sea port (I don’t recall which one) which is not far from an airport which I think is either leased to or bought by the Chinese. The Govn’t has just approved a powdered baby milk company to the Chinese.

    Tom Abbott
    November 15, 2019 7:57 am

    Dishonestly change the look of the global surface temperature chart and look what happen: Madness.

    Someday we will have to add up the costs of the lies of the Climategate Charlatans/Data Manipulators.

    Charlie Adamson
    November 15, 2019 7:59 am

    African Development Bank. (?) Looking up this “bank”, I quickly discovered that it makes a point to explain that it has an anti-corruption and transparency policy. Sound familiar folks?

    The Ukraine touted its’ “anti-corruption department” that was created by the Obama administration in order to clean up the corruption that it had declared existed in that country. Well surprise, surprise that department turns out to really be a promoter of corruption, effectively putting corruption in the Ukraine “on steroids”.

    Soon the world will begin to discover that these international and national “banks” are not for development, but instead designed to operate something like a drug dealer. In these cases they offer free help to countries and even whole continents for a time, eventually switching over to setting up debt systems which enslaves the people to the rush they got from all that “easy money”.

    Turns out folks, that it’s never really easy, nor is it free. It’s the same pattern throughout the world. Ultimately it leads to inflation, economic collapse and wars, wars and more wars, which these “banks” then finance. But not one side mind you. No they finance both sides of the “conflict”.

    Things aren’t as they appear to be. Watch the show. The curtain is being pulled back for all to see and these vermin do not like the light.

    Robert of Ottawa
    Reply to  Charlie Adamson
    November 15, 2019 5:00 pm

    Nothing so complex and accidental. the money from the West goes, via these development “banks” and aid institutes, to personal Swiss bank accounts.

    Bob Hoye
    November 15, 2019 8:06 am

    It is not just through electrical power that Europe is messing up Africa.
    Farm subsidies, particularly in France, keep out agricultural products from the growing regions in Africa.

    John Q Public
    November 15, 2019 8:42 am

    Donald Trump says “Thank You”. Coal can be sourced from the USA.

    Reply to  John Q Public
    November 16, 2019 10:27 am

    Donald Trump says “Thank You”. Coal can be sourced from the USA.

    How do you expect the U.S. coal to get to Kenya, on the east coast of Africa?

    November 15, 2019 8:49 am

    China will fund the project… for a price.

    November 15, 2019 8:57 am

    So the AFDB is towing Bank-of-England’s Mark Carney Green Finance Initiative line, in jolly colonial mode.

    And look at EU Commissioner (elect?) Ursula van der Leyen’s plans for the largest investment bank in the world, the EIB. Strictly green investments, no fossil fuel-linked projects anywhere. And not to forget the FED confab declaration of “regime change” in global banking. These “investments”, direct and out of any elected governments involvement, strictly green, even going as far as planning a synthetic blockchain for it all.
    China has jumped on this blockchain idea, likely as a response to Carney’s plans, but the Belt and Road Initiative is focused on physical economics, real projects.
    This stuff cannot be blamed on poor Greta, and is on full overdrive now as the central bankers system careens towards a blowout to make Lehman look like a tea-party.

    KcTaz
    November 15, 2019 12:16 pm

    This makes one wonder if China bribed some folks at the AFDB to get this outcome?

    Patrick MJD
    Reply to  KcTaz
    November 16, 2019 1:30 am

    Heard the phrase smoke and mirrors and Chinese handshakes?

    William Astley
    November 15, 2019 12:54 pm

    Africa needs cost effective 24/7 electricity.

    Green energy is intermittent expensive energy. There is no magic wand that can change expensive intermittent energy into cheap 24/7 energy.

    Germany has proven green energy is an expensive scam. There is a point where installing additional intermittent sources just increases the amount of energy that is wasted as there is no load and no power storage scheme that works for months.

    Germany has reached the limit of the intermittent sun and wind power schemes which explains why the Germans have cut subsidies for wind turbine installations.

    https://notrickszone.com/#sthash.BlxTY2Yc.dpbs

    Stricter regulations for wind parks, greater setback distances
    Not only have the subsidies for German wind parks been cut back, but also setback rules will become more strict in order to protect homes and residents from landscape blight and infrasound. In the future, wind parks will need to keep a greater distance away from residential areas. The current CDU/CSU/SPD government wants to keep at least one kilometer between wind power installations and residential areas in the future. This will make many proposed projects impossible.

    3000 job cuts in the works
    FOCUS reports: “The crisis in the German wind energy industry is worsening. According to the ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’, hard cuts at the largest German manufacturer Enercon will cost 3000 jobs.”

    Next year Enercon will also cut contracts with suppliers, sending a wave of job losses across the industry. “If supply contracts are terminated as planned, many of these companies are threatened with extinction,” FOCUS reports.

    Here is a picture that shows the 1001 German citizen initiatives to stop wind turbine installations throughout Germany.

    https://www.windwahn.com/karte-der-buergerinitiativen/

    November 15, 2019 1:41 pm

    When AID’s took off in Africa many people thought that it would solve
    the overpopulation problem. That never happened, so today its CC. So to
    “”Save the Planet,”” we must deny the people in Africa the use of
    electricity.

    So where is the money really coming from ? I would suspect the USA based
    World Bank.

    As one writer says, The Chinese will come forward with the money.

    MJE VK5ELL

    Patrick MJD
    Reply to  Michael
    November 15, 2019 7:49 pm

    Not really. AIDS was already in Africa and for a long time (Along with all manner of things that would make you skin crawl like the Guinea worm *SHUDDER*). It’s when it “took off” in America and Europe with the potential to become a problem on a pandemic scale people in the medical world started to pay attention.

    Once again, predictions of death and doom on a global scale failed.

    Robert of Ottawa
    November 15, 2019 4:52 pm

    I saw an ineresting docmentary a fews years ago where a doctor in some African country was complaining about the solar power and how come only Africans cannot have cheap reliable electricity.

    Robert of Ottawa
    November 15, 2019 4:57 pm

    The FArican Development Bank – where Western money goes to Switzerland. It doesn’t look like the President of the ADB had a night without electricity, had to cook breakfast on a smoke inducing wood BBQ in a small thatch hut and defecate in the woods.

    observa
    November 16, 2019 1:45 am

    Blame slavery, thalidomide, asbestos, DDT, tobacco and them Christians-
    https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/comment-thats-the-bloody-disgrace-australia-is-burning-but-nsw-is-cuddling-up-to-coal/ar-BBWOrB9
    Coal is the devil’s work and if you can’t see that you’re not a scientist.

    Fiona
    November 16, 2019 9:19 am

    Keep ’em poor.

    Johann Wundersamer
    November 24, 2019 4:17 pm

    Since “Biafra children starving” in the 60s the Western world is paying for Africa’s poor. To what success.

    https://www.google.com/search?q=Biafra+children+starving+in+the+60s&oq=Biafra+children+starving+in+the+60s&aqs=chrome.

    The success: Africa’s poor can afford to pay smugglers – “Many migrants save money for years to pay smugglers who arrange their routes to Europe. Image by Wairimu”

    https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/kenyans-brave-dangerous-journeys-hopes-slipping-europe

    https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-huawei&sxsrf=ACYBGNQD6urpfpHanpd1ED4koEOE0SQm6Q%3A1574639798789&ei=thjbXY_RL8-XmwX895-gDA&q=Kenya+poverty+migration+Europe&oq=Kenya+poverty+migration+Europe&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.