March of the eco-imperialists

A leaflet from the charity Practical Action recently solicited donations for some "real cutting-edge technology" to give to African farmers: namely, a plough.

Ploughs might cut the earth, but they haven't been "cutting-edge technology" for more than 400 years. Nor have water pumps, operated by pulling on a rope or laboriously treading on a wooden platform, which are being pushed onto communities from Ghana to India by carbon-offsetting charities like Climate Care, as replacements for diesel-powered machinery. Some of the treadle pumps are even disguised as roundabouts to exploit child labour.

There is no disguising the utter poverty of what now passes for 'sustainable development'. Our aspirations for Third World development have sunk so low that our idea of what these charities call 'appropriate technology' are devices outlawed in British prisons in the 19th Century.
 
As climate change hysteria has gripped Western elites, instead of marvelling at the way China and India's rapid economic development has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of grinding poverty, we see them as 'climate criminals'.

The WWF has famously warned that we will need three more planets for everyone to enjoy Western European lifestyles. Never mind that China and India are still the 129th and 167th poorest countries on earth, not to mention the rest of the developing world. The only way to save the planet, greens insist, is to scale back consumption at home, and prevent development abroad.
 
This worldview puts the environment, not people, at its centre, and its consequences are disastrous. Eco-activists managed to slash €4bn worth of EU aid to Third World industries in 2007 alone. They have sabotaged World Bank funding for infrastructure projects, like a hydro-electric dam in Gujarat province, India, which would have provided power for 5,000 villages, industries and sewage-treatment works, irrigation for crops and clean water for 35m people - all because, as one activist said, it would "change the path of the river, kill little creatures along its banks and uproot tribal people".
 
Western development agencies have banned the use of DDT when 300m people suffer from malaria and up to 3m die from it each year. The UN promotes the burning of charcoal instead of kerosene when 5m young people die annually from diseases caused by indoor wood-smoke inhalation.

Organic farming is promoted at the expense of mechanised agriculture when 840m people suffer from malnutrition. Guilt-ridden Westerners offset their carbon via charities that re-impose back-breaking drudgery on Third World peasants, while their governments, via the 2008 Bali Accord, pay poor countries to plant trees instead of developing their economies.
 
Historically, it is not through imposing limits but by transcending them that we have achieved truly remarkable progress. In the last century, although global population quadrupled, human wealth quintupled. Food production steadily outstripped population growth, and today we still produce enough to feed everyone on earth, and billions more. People starve because they can't afford food - not because it doesn't exist.

Human ingenuity has overcome resource shortages time and again, developing new technologies, using commodities more efficiently, overcoming scarcity and improving our living standards. The real question is why, given this historical record, we seem to have completely lost faith in our ability to keep doing this.
 
Developing countries, however, share neither our eco-angst, nor our poverty of ambition. Chinese investment is transforming southern Africa whether we like it or not, helping double economic growth rates in the last five years. We must stop wasting time trying to hold back global development and instead push ever faster, cooperating to develop and distribute cleaner, more efficient technology, and providing aid where necessary to help countries adapt to environmental changes.

As Millicent Kumeni from Ghana told the educational charity WorldWrite, "You think we don't want modern development? You must be dreaming. We want what you have... you've screwed Africa and held us back. I pray that you don't keep doing this." ·