When will believers realize that the policies restricting coal keep the world's poorest in the slums?

Question

To tell the world's poorest countries that they cannot have cheap coal-powered electricity means that blood is on the hands of the green environmentalists and the cap-and-trade/Kyoto policies they propose.

They want to be seen "helping", but green actions by the UN and others are directly responsible fore preventing the economic growth the world's poorest countries so desperately need.

Answer 1

The Kyoto Protocol set goals for developed countries.  In fact, that's why the US had such a problem with it - Kyoto didn't regulate emissions from developing countries like China and India.  So your premise is faulty.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environme...

Also, these sorts of agreements only set GHG emissions reductions goals.  How each country chooses to meets those goals is up to them.

*edit* Now you're talking about events completely seperate from Kyoto.

Kenya is a good example of what you're talking about.  They're producing an additional 2000 MW of energy within the next 10 years, 85% of that coming from geothermal.  

"We're at a real turning point in Kenya," said Jean-Pierre Marcelli, who heads the East Africa section of the French Development Agency (AFP).

"It's a choice between a clean energy policy with low carbon emissions and the path of fossil energy, which may be more simple and require less investments but is infinitely more polluting," he explained.

The Kenyan authorities are fully aware that opting for geothermal projects at a time when greening the world's economies and industries is high on the global agenda will earn them foreign backing.

Kenya's geothermal energy plan is being supported with donations and preferential loans from the AFP, the World Bank and German cooperation."

http://www.physorg.com/news136386431.htm...

Sounds to me like they know exactly what they're doing.  Maybe you should give them more credit.

"coal & fossil fuels are needed for full industrialization."

Says who?  Who are you to dictate to African nations that they have to use fossil fuels?  If they can develop without relying on them (like Kenya), then good for them.

Answer 2

What you fail to take into account is that the poor countries you are so concerned about are going to be the worst affected by global warming.

They have much agricultural land only inches above sea level.  Salt water flooding into that in storms will ruin it, causing mass starvation.  I think they'd rather eat than watch TV.  And so do they.  They are some of the most powerful voices asking for International action to reduce global warming.

Details here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNe...

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg2.h...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/...

It's not ME who's predicting it.  Read the above references, and:

http://environment.newscientist.com/arti...

http://www.thew2o.net/events/climatechan...

Answer 3

I fully agree with you. I have done research on coal fuel and even tryed doing a patition on sapporting it, but I had a difficult time, because people are highly uneducated on the subject. A lot of technology has been done since the old coal miners days by using liquafied coal as a sorce of fuel. - http://www.futurecoalfuels.org/default.a... - this web site gives a lot of info about the process and makes valid points about American security being based on finding our own fuel resources, coal being an aboundent supply would be an answer to meny of our problems. The biggest obstical is that most coal mines are owned or have been bought off by oil company's. The ritch run the country unless we protest and I for one would like to. The sight above also gives the adress of meny Congress members so that you can write and express your shared opinion on the matter.

Answer 4

those in power who are pushing to solve the "global warming crisis" dont care about the little people, or the environment for that matter. they only care about power and control. to them money is power, and political power is control. you dont hear the greenies complaining about the problems of building and recycling the batteries in hybrid cars, or complaining about the fact that hybrid cars are $6000 more expensive than a similar non hybrid model. if the greenies really cared about the environment, they would embrace large scale carbon scrubber technology, and geo thermal power plants, and other green energy sources, and yet to date they have shunned those technologies.

Answer 5

sure.

and there's a whole bunch of houses in Love Canal, that are really cheap.

just because you get cancer and all that stuff, don't let that stop you from helping the poor move into a nice house.

Answer 6

The PBMR South Africa is working on looks like it might be a good solution to the problem of coal for the developing world (and it'd also be ideal for the developed world too).  We should avoid the construction of new coal fired power plants but we also need to have a viable alternative to coal (and if there's nothing as cheap the developed world will just have to provide foreign aid to make an alternative as cheap).

Answer 7

Have you ever been to a slum?   I went through a number of them right next to a huge LNG liquification plant and coal export dock in Indonesia.   The LNG terminal was flaring off more gas that could have been turned into electricity than the slums could ever have used.   Yet the area was often without power.   Put the blame where it really belongs; the local government didn't build a reliable power transmission system, they local people can't afford the power even if there were reliable lines, it was cheaper for the LNG terminal to just burn off the excess gas than build a generation station to put the power on the grid, ....    Their not having a constant supply of power had nothing to do with GW believers or environmentalists.   Before blindly blaming everything on those who think we should try to clean up the mess we have created on this planet, do a little research and find out the real problem to your gripe.

Answer 8

It seems from things I have seen over the years that coal is several times the radiation hazard that nuclear is and the waste from a coal plant is not recyclable like nuclear waste is. I would prefer orbital solar which could be economically beamed to any place on the world where power is needed nut because of Jimmy Carter and the congressional democrats the US is an energy importer making oil companies rich instead of the energy exporter we could have been.

Who is to blame directly for the energy crisis and our dependency on oil and coal that is increasing the Co2 in the atmosphere that the AGW freaks are using to push their anti technology pogrom. No one but Jimmy Carter himself that signed the presidential orders that created the energy crisis and the liberal left in Congress that killed the backup SDI program that would have restored it.

Answer 9

It don't take a genius to see what it is costing the worlds poor. What  it is doing to the USA is terible. The Democrats will do nothing to help the oil situation.I think we need to tell them to produce or get out..