Let Africa Grow

When you think ‘sustainable energy’ or ‘carbon emissions’, what do you think of? I bet you are not thinking about Africa. Was I right?

Some of the things that might come to mind (other than Africa) are hybrid cars, solar power, or cutting back on energy use. But what if I told you that many of the efforts that green groups and officials on the left are fighting for could actually hurt developing nations like Africa?

Crazy figure number 1: 1.3 billion people in the world do not have access to electricity. Think about that, even beyond the clichéd examples of not having video games or television. No refrigeration, no light, no heat. I cannot even imagine living without refrigeration alone.

Crazy figure number 2: In Sub-Saharan Africa, 730 million people still cook and heat their homes with wood, charcoal, and animal dung. Animal dung. Sounds safe! Nothing like safely preparing a healthy meal after having to handle animal feces in order to cook it in the first place.

Did I succeed in making you a little depressed? I’m sorry, I am. But this is a blog, and I have to get you to pay attention for a few paragraphs.

The point is that many policies from the United Nations, American left groups and European powers put a stranglehold on the development of third-world nations. They believe that the poor areas of the world don’t have the same right to develop in the way that America and Europe did. They are obsessed with a false, romanticized and offensive vision of keeping developing nations ‘in tune with nature’, while people die of disease and malnutrition.

The point is that if these nations were given the same opportunity to utilize the technologies that come from fossil fuels like we did, you wouldn’t have 1.3 billion without power or 730 million having to resort to charcoal and dung for fuel. It’s a travesty.