Essay by Eric Worrall
Have we all just entered a parallel universe where mainstream media publishes articles which make sense?
Climate Change Hurts The Poor: But Not The Way You Think It Does
Tilak Doshi
Contributor
Oct 26, 2023,03:49pm EDT…
It would seem straightforward that resolving the “climate change” problem would serve the poor the most, given that they are the hardest hit. But, by a tragic turn of irony, moves to “fight climate change” are precisely what is hurting the poor most. It is not “climate change” but the policies adopted in response to it that are the problem afflicting the poor the most.
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Most of us who take affordable electricity ‘24/7’ supply for granted are unaware of the existential constraint on people’s daily lives that a lack of electricity implies. This was brought home brilliantly by Geoff Hill at a talk in House of Lords in Westminster on Monday. Geoff is Africa correspondent for The Washington Times, the first non-American John Steinbeck Award winner and has published with the Mail & Guardian(Johannesburg), The East African (Nairobi) and across the African continent.
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This leads us to the third striking feature of the climate finance data collated by CPI. Within the 92% of the $640 billion spent on climate finance directed to climate mitigation in 2020 (as opposed to the 8% spent on adaptation), 91% (or $536 billion) was spent on solar and wind power. Yet no country in the world has developed without the dense energy available from fossil fuels. Asking Africans to leave their fossil fuels resources in the ground in return for “climate finance” from Western governments and multilateral agencies to invest on unreliable solar and wind power is plainly unworkable. Dilute, unreliable and intermittent power from the wind and the sun will not meet the continent’s quest for higher standards of living, to save the forests and to have clean water to drink.
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Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tilakdoshi/2023/10/26/climate-change-hurts-the-poor-but-not-the-way-you-think-it-does/
Well said Tilak Doshi.
The “Geoff” referred to is Zimbabwean writer Geoff Hill, who Net Zero Watch reports spoke to the British House of Lords about how lack of reliable energy is leading Africa to burn their forests. Just like Europe almost destroyed their forests, before the large scale exploitation of coal.
Net Zero Watch also provides two documents, Paper 1: Africa’s burning issue: charcoal and the loss of forest (pdf) and Paper 2: Clean water for Africa: A dream whose time has come (pdf).
I don’t have a link to Geoff’s speech, if anyone has a link please post it in comments.
I really hope this Forbes article is more than a one off glimmer of sanity. If mainstream media news outlets were to start consistently acting like real journalists again, investigating and discussing real world problems caused by climate policy, instead of uncritically cheering on every ridiculous green idea which crosses their desk for the sake of the cause, the world would rapidly become a much better place.
How does one “fight Climate change” with boxing gloves or with pages of empty anti weather diatribes?
Fighting something like that is a fool’s errand that will in the end generate a lot of red faces when it becomes apparent, they were being mislead for power and money.
The Climate in my Columbia Basin region is the same through the ENTIRE Holocene.
BSk
LINK
Meanwhile, in my Ohio region, the climate has changed through the entire Holocene. Every f***in’ five minutes!
Aahhh, but Paul seems like you might be conflating weather with climate and the Propa…ahh alarmists are the only group, sanctioned by the UN, that are licensed to do that conflating thingy.
Op, op, op, op
Propaganda style
The “Climate Scientists” have had “climate” redefined so it is now only about 30 years.
I guess that’s all their models, given perfect information, could hope to predict.
The word ‘climate means just what they choose it to mean – neither more nor less.
The question is, who is to be master – that’s all.
(The answer, of course, is them.)
Bingo. The fight against climate change, battle against homelessness, war on drugs, etc., are nothing more than platitudes behind mechanisms for gaining control.
The War On…Drugs was where they got the citizenry drugged, then made war on them.
The War On..Terror was where they terrorised the citizenry into accepting a constant state of martial law and war on the population.
The War On…Cancer was where they used the genome of an aborted fetus, with a reported 57 genetic defects known to lead to cancer, then they went to war against anyone refusing to vaccinate.
The War On…Poverty was where they crashed the stock market, then used that as a pretense to decimate the work force, outsource to China, and make war on the unemployed.
The War On… Paedophilia was introduced by a wonderful professor announcing unto us that a quarter of al men are born paedophiles, and we should accept that.
Actually, it means your government has taken over the policing of a specific product or service, and only approved monopolists will be allowed to trade. In other words, every legal proscription ringfences some economic activity for the benefit of the connected mafiosi, while the Police are tasked with protecting said monopoly from all outside interference.
It is a commonly known fact that Bill Clinton used the CIA to smuggle cocaine, heroin etc into America for the War On… Drugs. Now you go trade some home-made coke down by the Kwikki Mart, and let us know how it went for you…
According to the WEF aligned globalists, you fight climate change by sending as much cash as you can muster, even raise taxation or nut zero requirements to crippling levels, it all helps!
Don’t forget that the WEF stacks the deck in advance so that the cash transferred by the GovMint from the middle class to “fight climate change” aka mandate wind and solar farms, along with all the other CO2 boondoggles, ends up in the WEF member black rock accounts, with all profit taking transferred to their tax deferred trust funds.
Since the Climate Change zealots are far more interested in increasing their control over what people eat, how they move around, and how much energy is available to the hoi polloi, … little things like actually protecting the environment are pushed aside.
“Climate Change” (plus other things) is more about getting people acclimated to accepting the loss of freedoms and money in the name of “Saving the Planet!”
(Cue George Carlin …)
https://climatechangedispatch.com/climate-policies-are-hurting-the-poor-not-a-mildly-warming-planet/
Its a bit rich of developed nation leaders, the UN etc, to tell developing nations they need to protect the climate by, well, staying poor
The sheer hubris is is as breathtaking as it is disturbing
As western leaders try to propel their masses back to the future, the developing nations, supported by BRICS+ nations, are having none of it and nor should they
“The world’s poor would be better off with less of the philanthropy practiced by the likes of Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg.”
Gates, Bloomberg, Schwab, and the rest of the WEF, moreover, are the central perps of these Climate Change Policy-Caused Crimes Against Humanity. Is anyone taking on the counting of the victims of the Climate Change false front for a New World Order.
Start with the count of the policy disaster of Sri Lanka after the head of state promised he would ban fertilizers (and did so) at the Glasgow COP (use The Wayback Machine, this recent history has been layered over with phony articles. Fellow Malthusians talk of an “ideal” population burden of only one billion.
I got up this morning at 08.00, the climate was changing, as it does every day, as it has done every day for 4.5Bn years – funny that, a dynamic climate, however, those silly wind & solar farms were producing only 6% of grid demand, between them, those billions were not well
stolenspentHow much of your neighbor’s money was an 08 00 hot mug of coffee worth?
The modern notion of infrastructure development clearly benefits the poor as well as everyone else. Energy being a key component of modern development, along with clean water and sanitation, effective roads and other transportation facilities, medical care, schools, internet and telecom, industrial products production, etc.
The notion that forcing developing societies to ration their access to both energy and transportation is mindless drivel, driven by ideology not by any actual concern for the health, welfare, and standard of living of other human beings.
“”It is not “climate change” but the policies adopted in response to it that are the problem afflicting the poor the most.””
Policies like….
“”Rich countries should stop pushing fossil fuels on Africa – don’t we deserve a renewable future too?
…those who caused the climate crisis should help Africa harness its wind and sun””
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/27/rich-countries-fossil-fuels-africa-renewables-gas-climate
Africa doesn’t have the existing FF infrastructure to allow at least partial integration of insanely expensive and unreliable (disruptive) wind and solar boondoggles that the developed countries used to hide the technical and economic realities of wind and solar electric generation. No amount of unreliables will allow for a functioning electric system in Africa.
I wonder if more of these factual exposes about the irrationality of utility-scale “renewable energy” will gather momentum.
Could Michael Moore’s 2019 documentary “Planet Of The Humans” have been a sleeper that has now set the rationality hounds running after the green/left loonies?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Humans
Not sure about that, Tilak Doshi has been writing sanity-filled articles exposing the stupidity of energy ideology in Africa and India for quite a few years now, many reprinted on WUWT. It’s good to see him getting more traction and bigger platforms for his articles, but I’m not sure Michael Moore gets any credit with that.
I don’t think we will see a landslide of accurate reporting on the climate change subject, but I have seen a couple of polls yesterday that show Americans are not so sure climate change is real as they were in the past. They also expressed less confidence in alarmist climate scientists and whether they know what they are talking about or not.
It was actually a little encouraging. 🙂
Very nice article, this is what we have been saying from the beginning. Not always as clear as this. We are winning, we need to convince the average guy and not worry so much about those in power or academia.
Everyone below the “Elite Class” is hurt by the so called actions to mitigate Climate Change. Yes, the poor get hurt more, however they are adequately compensated from the significant increase in taxes upon the middle and upper middle class.
P.S. If Climate Change were a FACT and not a SCAM, even the Elites would demand that that the money be spent on Nuclear Power and not on the abyss of “Renewable Energy.” It would take the entire GDP of all countries on Earth to reach “Net Zero.” Think how rich the Elites will become and the squalor the lower middle class and poor will live in.
Odd how so many of the “Elite Class” spend their money on politics and politicians to force people to accept and pay for these “solutions” rather than invest in them themselves.
The Public Library in my home town was paid for, including the first set of books, back in 1904 by Carnegie. Rockefeller and Carnegie seemed to be in competition as to who would build the most Public Libraries and Universities back then. Now the Elites seem to be in competition as to who can give the most money to third world countries to receive the recognition they seek and enrich the corrupt dictators in an effort to make them a Democracy with no regards to the fact that it only makes things WORSE.
The kind of article that can at this time only be written by someone with that name while the current party is in power.
WTF?
I have no idea either. Bizarre.
That’s a feature, not a problem. This was never about the environment. This was always about elitists confiscating wealth and consolidating power.
Bloomberg’s green-energy research team estimated it would cost $US200 Trillion to stop Global Warming by 2050.
There is only $US40 trillion in cash, checking, and savings in the world.
There are about 2 billion households in the world, so that is $US100,000 per household.
Ninety percent of the world’s households can’t afford anything additional so the households in developed nations will have to pay 10 times as much to cover it.
That means about $US 1 million per household in developed countries or about $US 33,000 per year for 30 years. The working people can’t afford anything near that.
The millionaires and billionaires have about $US208 billion. That would cover it, but they won’t give up their wealth.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-07-05/-200-trillion-is-needed-to-stop-global-warming-that-s-a-bargain#xj4y7vzkg
Of course, the Earth is still in a 2.55 million-year ice age named the Quaternary Glaciation, 20% of the land is frozen, and it snows ice crystals every year.
“Bloomberg’s green-energy research team estimated it would cost $US200 Trillion to stop Global Warming by 2050.”
Seems like it’d be much cheaper to just periodically nuke a dormant volcano or two to activate them.
Yes – the climate is moving in a positive direction as the world gently warms and greens.
‘Climate Policy’ is an elitist money grab.
https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/10/27/ovo-customers-could-save-160-this-winter/
So…….National Grid is repeating its failed demand side control mechanism again this winter – OVO are participating, they have 61,000 domestic consumers with smart meters signed up – that’s a staggering 0.2% of all domestic users in the UK
If NGESO believe this mechanism will keep the lights on, instead of putting more gas, coal & nuclear generation on line, they are literally thrashing around in the dark
Hmm, do those 61,000 customers with smart meters actually know they’ve been signed up for this? Volundrafted?
It’s probably a case of one step forward and five steps back–in the name of diversity of thought. That’s a new management direction from zero steps forward and six steps back under the old editor bias.
Well, considering climate change doesn’t hurt anyone, that’s not a hard bar to hurdle.
The very thing that the greens fear – deforestation – is far more likely to be caused by their policies than by any sort of climate change. India is but another example (even though the country is technically modern, but so many of its residents don’t get to take advantage of those modern conveniences). People are always going into nature preserves and natural forests to gather firewood for cooking. If these people had access to electricity they wouldn’t need to gather firewood…..
Imagine people going into state and national parks here in the US to gather firewood just to survive. Luckily we are able to preserve such areas precisely due to the high standard of living. Even the dirt poor here in the US have access to electric or gas stoves….
“The very thing that the greens fear – deforestation – is far more likely to be caused by their policies than by any sort of climate change.”
Lots of forest will have to be destroyed to install solar “farms” and industrial scale batteries in the heavily forested American northeast. Now the enviros are beginning to scream about this but they can’t seem to grasp that it’s their fault for pushing green energy and net zero laws. They actually think net zero can be gotten simply by solar on roofs. Try telling them that it’s impossible and they won’t hear you. It goes against their green religion. And of course they think green energy will be dirt cheap.
There is cozy relationship between government and journalists. Climate Change has become the scapegoat for every poor decision of government. If Australia has blackouts this year, it will be due to climate change. If Australia has damaging floods this year it will be due to climate change. If Australia has damaging wild fires this year it will be due to climate change.
Ever notice how the staff numbers in their ABC increases when ALP is in power Federally and numbers drop when LNP is in power. ABC literally HATE LNP governments because they limit budgets. ALP are strongly favoured because they increase numbers.
Trump has never played the press well. And the press returned the disfavour.
This is an exellent article from Forbes. A very relevant point they make is defining the distinction between ‘mitigation’ and ‘adaption’.
“By describing “weather” as “climate change”, policy emphasis is put on mitigation rather than adaptation to reduce the impacts of future climate change on human welfare. The implicit assumption behind mitigation is that greenhouse gases are the primary driver of climate change and trying to “fight climate change” by reducing GHGs should be the overriding priority for policymakers from Germany to South Africa.”
“Adaptation is defined as directing resources to activities aimed at reducing the vulnerability of humans or natural systems to the impacts of climate change and climate-related risks. Improving adaptive capacity and resilience would include public investments in sturdier housing, better urban drainage and sewage systems to avoid flooding and disease, improving clean water supplies, improving irrigation for climate-resilient agriculture, providing access to electricity and natural gas for cooking and heating homes to substitute away from using fuelwood and charcoal, and so on.”
“.. total climate finance by both private and public sources in 2020 amounted to an estimated $640 billion. Only 8% was spent on adaptation; the rest, 92%, went to mitigation. “
Whenever there’s a current, extreme weather event, and I search for the history of extreme weather events in the area, using available BOM records, or copies of ancient media reports, I usually find a record of an equally severe, or even more severe weather event in the past, before CO2 levels began rising significantly. Occasionally, there are exceptions, and a flood in a particular area might actually be the highest on record. However, when that’s the case, the cause of the unprecedented flood level is usually a result of human activity, such as changing the landscape by removing a forest, or building an elevated highway across a flood plain, which obstructs the water flow during a flood, causing a higher water level on one side of the highway.
Adaption should be the priority, instead of mitigation. It amazes me that, in Australia, which is well-known as a land of floods and droughts, a major flood that occurs every few years in certain locations, continues to cause increasing damage to infrastructure and homes, as a result of a lack of adaption.
Talking of the House of Lords, I sent my photo of a 10 year old Hmong tribal boy cooking lunch inside the hut in Laos, burning ‘traditional biomass’ as those horrible hypocrites call it – to his lordship the Bishop of Portsmouth when I heard that the church was ‘disinvesting’ fossil fuels. I said that his Christian duty was to get electricity into the ‘third world’ especially Africa. I expect my letter was ignored.
I should imagine the Archbishop of Canterbury to be more receptive to a crie de coeur.