Bishop Hill Creating distance
On the previous thread, Richard Betts argued that nobody was arguing for shifting resources from dealing with the problems of the present and towards the (hypothetical) problems of the distant future.
As evidence to the contrary, I give you firstly the reaction to Bjorn Lomborg's arguments - namely that we should focus on problems like clean water, malaria and access to energy in the developing world today. For this he has been subject to what can reasonably be characterised as a hate campaign by environmentalists.
Secondly I give you Bob Ward, who described a Matt Ridley article calling for a focus on energy access for Africa as "extreme nonsense":
.@montie It is extreme nonsense from @mattwridley who denies the harm to poor people from coal through climate change and air pollution.
— Bob Ward (@ret_ward) May 1, 2015
Ward's views were echoed by author and environmentalist Gregory Norminton
.@montie Tim, as long as you side with climate cranks your whole 'Good Right' project will have zero credibility. Plse speak to @MLiebreich.
— Gregory Norminton (@GDRNorminton) May 1, 2015
Richard Nourse, the founder of Greencoat Capital actually called for people to distance themselves from Ridley's sentiments.
Spot on. Tim - time to distance yourself on this from @mattwridley and @aDissentient https://t.co/4E5vKQBYEJ
— Richard Nourse (@RichardHCNourse) May 2, 2015
...and lest you think this was just an aberration, he was retweeted by Nick Mabey of major green NGO, E3G.
So I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that greens are not advocating treating today's problems as being of secondary importance. Indeed, the treatment of Lomborg suggests that there is a consensus among greens and many academics that addressing these problems now is wrong.
Reader Comments (65)
Bob Ward must know things other people don't for knowing that people in Africa are affected by climate change caused by CO2?? All that taxmoney poured in him is paying off.
Oh wait no he is a liberal rettard, he knows chicken shti
What this reaction to Lomborg tells us is that the alarmists are getting absolutely desperate and are effectively being pushed into a corner or into "nutter" territory.
I hope the African nation's politicians are alerted to this sort of thinking , go to Paris with a "full head of steam" and tell the UN where to stick their hoped for agreement.
Alas Ross the environmentalists have a hold over the developing world in that they have a big say on where, and on what, aid money is spent. They use it ruthlessly, as they did with the DDT ban, to make developing countries conform to their warped anti-human activities.
@geronimo (May 3, 2015 at 10:26 PM) : I will respectfully disagree with you re: "clean water projects etc...." for Africans will not help much. Clean Safe drinking water, access to basic medical services, cheap RELIABLE energy etc will do much to reduce infant mortality rates and hence reduce the need for more children to help the family farms survive. In addition, modest increases in the output of the average peasant farmer will produce sufficient quantities of food to reduce most of the starvation crises in the region. In the 1970's (shortly after "Limits to Growth") it was noted that if the average output of an Indian peasant farmer could be raised to that of the average American farmer in the 1870's, India could feed itself and have a food surplus. This could be accomplished with a modest increase in farming technology. In particular, the technology suggested was to replace the old wooden plows with a horse or oxen pulled "steel mold-board" plow and other simple changes like crop rotation.
GKA: You are correct in what you say, and I probably made my point badly. The point I was trying to make is that aid, in and of itself, won't solve Africa's problems, which are political and cultural. African countries need to emulate India and China in development before real progress can be made to solving their problems. It is a continent rich in resources, but while it takes aid the environmentalists will use all their influence to see that the Africans don't progress in return for the aid. We should never underestimate either the power environmentalists have over the distribution of aid, nor their determination at whatever human cost to prevent economic progress.
Ahem, sorry to put a contrarian line in here, but I don't believe clean water projects etc. will necessarily help Africans, it will just alleviate their current suffering, be a plaster on the wound. What Africa needs, and I have the whole sweep of the history of the 20th century to support me in this view, is widespread capitalism, industrialisation and democracy
May 3, 2015 at 10:26 PM | Registered Commentergeronimo
Geronimo - clean water WILL help Africans. Ask the women eaten by crocodiles while attempting to fetch river water. But agreed such projects alone will not solve the problem of W Africa.
To get West Africa out of its present state needs somehow to break the cycle of corrupt government. Many aid programmes have done nothing more than reinforce the cycle of corruption.
It is hard to comprehend the thoughts of these people. Where is the logic in their thought processes? There is good empirical evidence that poor people worldwide die young because they are poor and being poor bring many problems which can be readily solved by cheap, not expensive, energy.
Betts' argument in your previous thread was unbelievable for an intelligent person.
geronimo,
Clean water good, cheap power better, it's not a solution but it's a start........maybe, maybe not.
I am not convinced at all that, 'it' - industrialization and elevation to modernity and pluralistic ways of the west - I hesitate to use the descriptor....."democracy" for it is long since departed here in the EU. However, back to the subject and things African - the circumstances to bring 'it' about - will quite possibly never accrue on the continent of Africa, it is unique and perhaps we look at a problem not in the way African eyes would so observe.
Oh yes, Africa [actually the human race] has a unique set of problems not least of which is a visceral, endemic racist attitude to anyone who is not of or, part of your own particular tribe but although we count ourselves as civilized because...... just about in Europe we have stopped slaughtering each other because of local differences and difficulties. Evidently, this is not so in Africa, for, from the Horn to the Atlantic coast and from the Cape to the Nile delta people are getting on with killing each other with rampant abandon.
Africa in one of the most successful periods.
A micro clique of very powerful people, whose hold other than extreme violence over the masses I will never fathom - kept order. Across the land and did build lots of death monuments to celebrate the hierarchy and their tyranny of power, hundreds of thousands, millions actually - of slaves did their bidding and life was cheap, so, so very cheap and not much has changed in Egypt since the new creed took over.
The British tried, nearly succeeded in a couple of places but of course we were racists to boot and thus booted out and now things are so much better.
I really do think, that, the days of Empire have not gone. Though this time, it is a power from the east which secures hegemony and from Sudan to Zimababwe, it is they who pull the strings. Crikey, building roads and constructing all sorts of shiny new structures for the benefit of the local people such altruism is almost missionary in its zeal and of course it enables ores, oil and diamonds to be shipped more easily - a knock on - side effect benefit you must surely understand.
And in the remainder, Africa
starvestrundles on? Maybe, or not but the poverty is widespread, the populations ever expand and the west gives aid to salve the consciences of the illiberal loonies, Socialist clowns running the show back in London, Washington, Berlin and Paris, don't it make you feel all warm inside?Plus, if you carry on feeding people for free pretty damn quick they get to like it and this takes the pressure off the national African governments. African governments to coin a dodgy phrase - who pretty soon got it. Thus, blame all of your problems on the former colonialists, go cap in hand to the UN - lobby the Arab states and form a Islamic bloc to browbeat the west into cobbling something called AGENDA 21, which straps the west and helps no one and the aid will keep flowing[?] or until the west goes bankrupt [we are already].
And so it goes and the answer is not forthcoming, until perhaps Africa moves to Europe - they are and that'll work...won't it?
Athelstan. Are you sugesting African Govs came up with Agenda 21?
GKA/geronimo
I have blogged and also commented here on the possibility of Africa becoming self-sufficient within a generation. The area under discussion was South Sudan which, it was argued, only needed some technological assistance (desalination and irrigation) to become the breadbasket of Africa.
Well, not quite 'only' - it also needed an end to the warlords and ruthless dictators usually being propped up with Western "aid" (so-called).
And the point has been made frequently, including by those NGOs that used to care about the poor but can now not see beyond climate change, that while drought is natural, famine is always political.
Aid is not the be-all and end-all but properly used as pump-priming or kick-starting the effects could be beyond most poor Africans' wildest dreams.
So what's stopping us? Answers on a postcard to the next occupant of 10 Downing Street (or in my case the Elysée Palace).
It's Shukman, not Harrabin, that's gone to the Arctic again to observe the warming for the BBC. See here.
It is sad, that whatever Lomborg, and those of similar persuasion say, the politicians of all colours will believe the warmists. Whoever is PM after Thursday's GE, he will attend the Warmist love-in in Paris later this year. And will sign up to some crackpot fudge that will make life harder for all - especially the underdeveloped nations.
@ Dodgy Geezer - "The warmists are not in the business of dispassionate discussion - they are defending a political position ... ... that person's a physicist, not a qualified Climate Scientist! ... ... Betts is ... trying to defend a political position."
Quite. I thought it had been decided that only properly qualified persons were allowed to debate anything. I guess that, unless Betts has a PPE degree or summink that excludes him. Henceforward this debate should be exclusively between peeps like, er, whassis name I've forgotten - oh you know ... it's on the tip of my tongue ... Nigella's Dad
Lomborg's entire program consists of creating false dichotomies. The good Bishop follows right along this Swiss cheese argument. As Stephen Gardiner puts it
So before Eli even starts to take this current offensive seriously Bjorn baby is going to actually have to use some of his gains to help the poors and Abbott is going to have to restore those 11B$Aus cuts in aid to help the poors. Till then it is just a crooked club to push your political views.
Well said Eli R. This sudden found love of all thing African by swivel-eyed right wingy types is a bit much.
Have said it before but Lomborg is a convenient (well funded) idiot. He is a fraud.