Eco-Colonialism Degrades Africa
by Paul Driessen and Willie Soon, Townhall.com, February 14, 2009 [here]
Sub-Saharan Africa remains one of Earth’s most impoverished regions. Over 90% of its people still lack electricity, running water, proper sanitation and decent housing. Malaria, malnutrition, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and intestinal diseases kill millions every year. Life expectancy is appalling, and falling.
And yet UN officials, European politicians, environmentalist groups and even African authorities insist that global warming is the gravest threat facing the continent. They claim there is no longer any debate over human-caused global warming – but ignore thousands of scientists who say human CO2 emissions are not the primary cause of climate changes, there is no evidence that future warming will be catastrophic, and computer models do not provide valid projections or “scenarios” for the future.
Warming alarmists use the “specter of climate change” to justify inhumane policies and shift the blame for problems that could be solved with the very technologies they oppose.
Past colonialism sought to develop mining, forestry and agriculture, and bring better government and healthcare practices to Africa. Eco-colonialism keeps Africans “traditional” and “indigenous,” by insisting that modern technologies are harmful and not “sustainable” in Africa.
Abundant, reliable, affordable electricity could power homes, offices, factories, schools and hospitals, create jobs, bring clean running water, and generate health and prosperity. But Rainforest Action Network and other pressure groups oppose coal and natural gas electricity generation on the grounds of climate change, and hydroelectric and nuclear power for other ideological reasons. They promote wind turbines and solar panels that provide electricity unreliably and in amounts too small to meet any but the most rudimentary needs. …
Few climate actions, however, come close to the travesty being played out in nearby Chad. There the government has banned the manufacture, importation and use of charcoal – the sole source of fuel for 99% of Chadians.
“Cooking is a fundamental necessity for every household,” its Environment Minister pronounced. But “with climate change every citizen must protect his environment.”
The edict has sent women and children scavenging for dead branches, cow dung, grass and anything else that burns. “People cannot cook,” said human rights activist Merlin Totinon Nguebetan. “Women giving birth cannot even find a bit of charcoal to heat water for washing,” said another. …
So this is where radical climate change alarmism has taken us. When the health of Planet Earth is at stake, human life means little – even if the “disasters” are nothing more than worst-case scenarios conjured up by computer models, headline writers, Hollywood, and professional doomsayers like Gore, Hansen and NOAA alarmist-in-chief Susan Solomon.
“Every time someone dies as a result of floods in Bangladesh, an airline executive should be dragged out of his office and drowned,” British arch-environmentalist George Monbiot lectured readers of The Guardian, in a typically hysteria-laced column.
One has to wonder if he would apply the same standard to eco-colonialist executives who continue to perpetuate poverty, disease, malnutrition and death in the name of preventing “global warming disasters” that fewer and fewer respectable scientists still believe are caused by human greenhouse gas emissions.
It’s time to address Africa’s real problems and replace lethal eco-colonialism with fact-based science and humane public policies. … [more]
Paul Driessen is a senior fellow with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, nonprofit public policy institutes that focus on energy, the environment, economic development and international affairs. He is the author of Eco-Imperialism - Green Power, Black Death [here]. See also Still Feeding The World [here].
Willie Soon is chief science adviser for the Science and Public Policy Institute and author of numerous papers on climate change. See Reconstructing Climatic and Environmental Changes of the Past 1000 Years: A Reappraisal [here].
Pity them, for all they have is the cotton-candy, empty calories of their castles in the air. They know not the taste of freedom, or how hard-won the victory, to be able to taste said freedom.
They are the real paupers. We may appear to them to be serfs, but we know the joy of being self-starters, clear of eye and conscience.
Pity the Hairy Reeds of the world, for theirs is ONLY this world. Heav’n’s Gate twill be shut in their collective, apoplectic snarling masks.
Eco-colonialism is alive and well right here. For more on job shrinking and the general buggering up of our economy by Goober Ted “Stinky” Taxandgougeme, see:
And to get a feel for the enormity of senseless economy killing underway, read about the regional Cap and Stifle program promoted by Lunatic Ted and his counterpart in Califorwhat? Ahnold the Barbarian [here].
Tearing down dams, shutting down power plants, restricting manufacturing and every other segment of the economy are exactly the wrong things to do, right now or anytime. There is no global warming, CO2 is not a pollutant, and the green lobbyists and their sycophantic bureaucrats are the worst plague ever to poison the planet.