The Arrogance of a Well-Fed Society. By Alex B. Berezow. Real Clear Science, July 22, 2013.
Berezow:
Every
time I write an article about population growth or poverty, I receive at least
one e-mail insisting that there are too many humans on the planet. That
erroneous statement is usually followed up with a not-so-subtle suggestion that
letting a few people starve to death wouldn’t be a terrible thing, but instead
would actually make the planet a safer, richer and more sustainable place.
Not
many things shock me anymore. But the arrogance and callousness of a well-fed
society toward those who are less fortunate always leaves me stunned.
What is
particularly frustrating is that both sides of the political spectrum claim to
be the true champions of the poor – while simultaneously endorsing policies
that disproportionately harm them.
The
Left repeatedly insists that climate change is the world’s #1 problem, and this
has distracted us from the world’s actual #1 problem: Poverty. About 1.3 billion people don’t have electricity, meaning they also don’t have adequate
access to food, healthcare or the Internet. Essentially, such communities are
condemned to a life of indefinite poverty. Providing them with cheap
electricity is a compassionate, progressive thing to do.
Or at
least it was at one time. In an article posted on New Geography, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus explain how
the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) “established the progressive principle
that cheap energy for all was a public good, not a private enterprise.”
Why is
it necessary to make cheap electricity a public good? Because it helps end the
vicious cycle of poverty. The authors describe the stark reality of life in the
American South in the 1930s:
Eighty
years ago, the Tennessee Valley region was like many poor rural communities in
tropical regions today. The best forests had been cut down to use as fuel for
wood stoves. Soils were being rapidly depleted of nutrients, resulting in
falling yields and a desperate search for new croplands. Poor farmers were
plagued by malaria and had inadequate medical care. Few had indoor plumbing and
even fewer had electricity.
The TVA
helped change this. Cheap hydroelectric power lifted residents out of poverty
and even helped restore the environment.
Therefore,
providing cheap electricity to the 1.3 billion people without it should be a
top global priority. Solar and wind power should be implemented if possible,
but not all locations will be amenable to that technology. And that means it
will be necessary to burn more fossil fuels in some locations, even though more people will die as a result of air pollution. But given a choice between a life
of poverty (and all the hazards that come with it) versus a chance at a more
prosperous life (albeit one with an increased risk of lung cancer), most people
in the developing world would probably choose the latter, even if that upsets
climate-obsessed progressives in the rich world.
On the
Right, conservatives need to give up their ideological opposition to birth
control. While the world is not overpopulated as a whole, overpopulation does
cause issues at the regional level. (That is why I like to say the world is not
overpopulated, but rather “maldistributed.”) For instance, only so many people
can live in the U.S. Southwest before water shortages become a routine problem.
At the
behest of President George W. Bush, the United States implemented a program
called PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) that was rightfully
praised for saving millions of Africans from HIV. But the program was
criticized for doing little (perhaps even undermining efforts) to provide women
with birth control. But, cheap birth control – just like cheap electricity – is
an important tool to help end the vicious cycle of poverty.
To truly
help developing societies, we need to answer their immediate needs. That is far
more compassionate than trying to shape them into the societies we would like
them to be.
