Links tagged “development”

Michael Shellenberger: "It was economic growth that lifted Thunberg’s ancestors out of agrarian poverty, raised life expectancy from 40 to 70 years, and liberated women and girls from feudal patriarchy. Without Sweden’s economic growth, and the fossil fuels upon which it depended, the person who is Greta Thunberg would not exist...in the name of fighting climate change, powerful first-world organizations including Sierra Club and Greenpeace, whose annual revenues nearly total $500 million, have forced World Bank and other banks to divert lending from cheap and reliable energy sources like hydroelectric dams and natural gas power plants to expensive and unreliable ones like solar panels and industrial wind turbines. And, last year, Thunberg and other student climate activists even sued Brazil, where per capita incomes are just 25% that of Sweden, for supposedly not doing enough to restrict greenhouse gas emissions..."

"Increased wealth from manufacturing is what allows nations to build the roads, power plants, electricity grids, flood control, sanitation, and waste management systems that distinguish poor nations like the Congo from rich ones like Sweden."

"Two years later, an Indian village made worldwide headlines after it rebelled against the solar panel and battery “micro-grid” Greenpeace had created as a supposed model of energy leapfrogging for the world’s poorest people. The electricity was unreliable and expensive.  “We want real electricity,” chanted villagers at a state politician, “not fake electricity!” Children held up signs saying the same thing. By “real electricity” they meant reliable grid electricity, which is mostly produced from coal. The village was shortly thereafter connected to the grid."

Such a fall would remove some of the projected strain on natural resources but would present governments with stark policy choices over migration and the economy. The world’s population will peak at 9.7 billion in 2064 and decline to 8.8 billion by the end of the century, according to research led by the University of Washington in the US and published in the Lancet. It says some countries, including Japan, Spain and Italy, will see their populations halve, while sub-Saharan Africa’s population will triple in the next 80 years. ...

The number of older people will overtake the young, with 2.4 billion people over the age of 65 forecast by 2100, compared with 1.7 billion under the age of 20. The major factors in shrinking the population are widening access to contraception and improvements in educating women and girls. If those trends are curtailed, higher growth will ensue.

A Kenyan biologist thinks white Europeans and Americans are using “nature conservation” for “self promotion” and have created nothing but failure in Africa. He accuses NGOs and nature conservation organizations of creating a “permanent crisis” to justify their work and transform Africa into a place for white people to enjoy...He also refers to nature conservation scientists as “prostitutes” and NGOs as “pirates”.

Dr. Ogada told GEO: “Nature conservation in Africa still follows the rules of colonial times: keep black people away from nature so that white people can enjoy it.” ... “Nature conservation organizations spend millions to bring their romantic message to the people: the story of white saviors who save the wildlife in Africa – from the Africans.”

Ogada also illustrates how western values are gravely out of whack, using the example of six poached gorillas at Virunga that made western headlines but not widescale killing and raping of women and children: “But the worst thing about it was that at the same time Virunga was considered one of the world’s worst rape scenes. Hundreds of women were raped every day, children were killed. And none of it made the news. Just the six dead gorillas. And that is so fundamentally wrong.”

Research shines a light on the reasons why the Government has been keen to lift lockdown, in spite of experts claiming it happened too soon

Reservoirs in the heart of an ancient Maya city were so polluted with mercury and blue-green algae that the water likely was undrinkable. Researchers from the University of Cincinnati found toxic levels of pollution in four central reservoirs in Tikal, an ancient Maya city that dates back to the third century B.C. in what is now northern Guatemala. UC’s findings suggest droughts in the ninth century likely contributed to the depopulation and eventual abandonment of the city...

A geochemical analysis found that two reservoirs nearest the city palace and temple contained extremely high and toxic levels of mercury that UC researchers traced back to a pigment the Maya used to adorn buildings, clayware and other goods.

“There is a new colonialism just as oppressive as the original,” he said. “Some in the environmental movement believe they can sit in London, New York or Paris with the comforts of modern life and dictate to Africa how they should generate power.”