They proclaim a ‘human right’ to ‘clean
environment’ but not to reliable energy or better health
By Paul Driessen
On the evening of September 30, 1882, Henry Rogers turned
a switch and the Hearthstone Historic House living
room in Appleton, Wisconsin (my mother’s hometown) was bathed in a soft amber
glow. Hearthstone became the first home in the world lit by electricity.
Today, few can imagine
our lives without plentiful, reliable, affordable electricity – for lights,
computers, washers, driers, dishwashers, heating, air conditioning, television,
vehicles, hospitals, schools, factories, data centers, artificial intelligence
and more, to light, improve and sustain our lives.
And yet nearly 750 million
people still have no access to electricity. Billions more have minimal, sporadic
access. The vast majority live in Sub-Saharan Africa: 600 million with no
electricity; hundreds of millions more with minimal or sporadic power. Many Asians
and Latin Americans are similarly deprived. Often, electrification rates are
high in cities but extremely low in the countrysides.
Incredibly, across
much of Europe, millions of poor and middle-class families are also deprived.
Many simply cannot afford electricity prices that have skyrocketed in the wake
of coal, gas and nuclear power plant closures, in favor of wind and solar
installations.
Other Europeans no
longer have jobs, because factories and entire industries cannot
afford those prices,
closed down and sent their jobs to China and other coal-based-electricity
nations. Still others are being told by climate-obsessed pressure group, media
and political elites to light, heat and cool only one room, wear more sweaters,
and appreciate electricity when it’s available, not gripe about its cost or
absence.
Europe refuses to
frack for oil and gas … but imports Russian fuels, thereby sustaining Putin’s
war on Ukraine’s citizens and civilian infrastructure.
Several US states
have also imposed Euro-style electricity rates, rolling or recurring blackouts,
and economic disruption in the name of saving the planet from climate
calamities.
Leading, applauding
and demanding this insanity are the United Nations, European Union, International Court
of Justice (ICJ), multilateral
anti-development banks, non-governmental organizations and even
the now-defunct USAID.
They harp about climate emergencies, demand that countries switch to “clean”
energy, and refuse to approve or finance fossil fuel projects even for Africa.
The ICJ recently
asserted that people
have a “human right” to a “clean, healthy, sustainable environment” – which to
the court means no impacts from fossil-fuel-driven climate change. It said
nothing about rights to reliable and affordable energy, modern healthcare or
decent living standards.
These proclamations
and policies carry serious and often lethal consequences, especially for the
world’s poorest people. They excuse and justify policies that effectively keep
families and nations mired in poverty, squalor, joblessness, disease and
malnutrition.
President Trump has
excoriated the UN
for its “brutal” climate and Net Zero policies. The rest of the world should do
likewise.
The ICJ-defined
right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment also ignores the reality
that “clean energy” requires extensive mining and minerals processing, using fossil fuels and
resulting in extensive toxic land, air and water pollution. Much of this dirty
work is done in the poor families’ own backyards (because the elites want no
mining or processing in their fiefdoms), and much of it involves child and slave
labor, no or substandard workplace safety rules,
and rampant land and habitat desecration.
The subsequent
wind, solar and transmission installations impact hundreds of times more crop,
habitat and scenic lands than coal or gas power plants that generate
electricity in far greater quantities, far more reliably, far less expensively.
In India’s Thar
Desert, next to Pakistan, native species are being sacrificed on the climate
crisis and clean energy altar. Solar panels already blanket over 200
square miles; more than 2.5 million trees have been cut
down to install them; and another 14,000 square miles of habitat (almost equal
to Switzerland or half of South Carolina) could be clear cut for more panels,
Vijay Jayaraj reports.
Even ponds that
once attracted pelicans and a dozen other species are covered with solar
panels. Numerous other wild species are also struggling to survive as their habitats
are destroyed. Cleaning and cooling the panels already requires the equivalent
of 300,000 people’s drinking water needs every week.
This destruction is
happening all over the world. The ICJ still insists wind and solar power foster
“clean, healthy, sustainable, climate friendly” economies – and ignores the
privation it perpetuates.
The limited,
intermittent, unpredictable electricity from Climate Cabal-approved generators guarantees
that the world’s still-impoverished people will never have the appliances we
take for granted. They may eventually have cell phones and laptops, a few
lights, dorm-room refrigerators, and jobs maintaining “renewable” power
systems.
However, they will
never enjoy the modern healthcare, homes and living standards that require
24/7/365 coal, gas, nuclear or hydroelectric power.
So before we let Net
Zero fanatics in the Climate Industrial Complex inflict their lies, ideologies
and policies on people who’ve never had an opportunity to enjoy – much less
reject – the marvels of modern civilization, let’s ask those prospective
victims if they’re okay with that version of a “clean,
sustainable” future. With giving up their aspirations for the
lives and wonders they see in movies and magazines.
Let’s find out
whether they’ve had a chance to speak with their European counterparts, and
inquire about how Europe’s automotive, glass, pharmaceutical and other industries
are faring. How many workers still have jobs.
How many companies have moved their operations to China, India or other faraway
locales. How much they enjoy living under the costs and restrictions imposed by
EU politicians and bureaucrats.
Eastern Europeans
weren’t overjoyed to exchange six years under the Nazis for 50 years under the
benevolent people’s republics of the Soviet Union. Poor families in Africa,
Asia and Latin America might not equally unexcited about the prospect of
swapping their current daily grinds
for the minimally better lives envisioned for them by would-be global ruling
elites.
Perhaps they will
no longer have to live in mud-and-thatch huts, carry water from distant wells, cook
over wood and dung fires that infect women and babies with lung diseases, get
intestinal diseases from parasite-infected water and spoiled food, suffer from
malaria and other insect-borne diseases, be treated in antiquated hospitals
that don’t even have window screens, and die decades before they should.
But how much better
will their lives be under policies imposed by elites who decide their fates
after flying private jets from one of their mansions to the next 5-star
UN-sanctioned climate or economic conference?
The world’s poor
don’t just have a human right to truly clean, healthy, sustainable environments.
They have a right to enjoy the benefits of affordable 24/7 electricity, well-paid
jobs, and all the modern appliances, healthcare, homes, prosperity and 6,000+
products made from petrochemicals that most people in industrialized nations
already enjoy.
And do so without
being guilted and conned by phony claims that aspiring to such energy and lives
will bring worsening storms and inundations from rising seas, more forest fires, stressed blood
supplies and other catastrophes conjured up by
climate grifters and their political, academic and media allies.
Poor and developing
nations need to band together, finance their own energy infrastructure,
development, health and prosperity – and tell the carbon colonialists to take a
hike.
Paul Driessen is senior
policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism:
Green Power - Black Death, and other books and articles on energy, climate
change, economic development and human rights.
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and the Social Circles Promoting That Behavior