Killing Me Softly
10 ways mainstream environmentalism hurts the developing world
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by Max Borders“Why do developed countries impose their environmental ethics on poor countries that are simply going through a stage they themselves went through?” asks James Shikwati, director of Kenya’s Inter-Regional Economic Network.
Why indeed? This is not just a question of economics, but for many, a question of life or death. While in the West we quibble about the ozone levels and endangered snails, people in impoverished countries are thinking not only about how they’re going to get their next meal, but how they’re going to cook it. Western environmentalists are happy to sit in the air conditioning and pressure Third World governments to adopt an eco-ethos that has little relevance in places where flies cover the bodies of the infirm, and people drink from unsanitary mud holes.
But when we apply our myopic environmentalism to the problems of far away places in the developing world, are we helping? Many argue that we're hurting. Allow me to enumerate just some of the ways mainstream activists are killing the developing world with kindness:
1. DDT is bad for you (try a mosquito net)
Malaria kills a million Africans yearly. So in South Africa, they started doing the unthinkable: they sprayed small amounts of DDT in their homes to protect against mosquitoes carrying the deadly disease (despite a pan-African and UN ban encouraged by environmental groups). Incidents of Malaria in South Africa have declined precipitously. Millions of lives have been saved.
In neighboring countries, however, the story isn’t such a good one. The Mosquito-borne plague kills almost as many people as HIV, and some say eco-activists have a share of the blame. Tragically, DDT is again banned under the UN’s 2001 Stockholm Convention, which was ratified by fifty nations. “Into the 21st century, countries including South Africa and Ethiopia still swear by DDT to combat malaria, which kills a million people a year. They say there is scant evidence that DDT is carcinogenic for humans,” said a representative for Africa Fighting Malaria.
2. Burning dung until the cows come home
There is a brown cloud of toxic dung-smoke hovering over much of the 3rd World. Why? People in poor countries rely on burning cow-patties because their governments listen to a lot of Western BS. In his book, Eco-imperialism, Paul Driessen sites Ed Begley Jr. as an exemplar of the misplaced notions that bring misery to the third world: “The two most abundant forms of power on earth are solar and wind, and their getting cheaper and cheaper…” says Begley. “It’s much cheaper for everybody in Africa to have electricity where they need it, on their huts.” Right.
This remark, while well-intentioned, falls somewhere between arrogance and inanity. Sadly, however, it reflects a wider attitude that may keep the world’s poor burning dung for the next fifty years. Mainstream environmentalists insist that the developing world stay away from carbon-based energy resources such as coal or gas, because these emit greenhouse gases. The same groups are opposed to hydroelectric dams, as they can threaten surrounding ecosystems. Instead, these groups pressure 3rd World governments to adopt thoroughly unrealistic means such as solar or wind power. While people in grubby shantytowns wait on solar panels for their “huts,” they continue to burn cow dung for energy—resulting in the release of both toxic fumes and greenhouse gases far worse than a modern coal-burning plant could ever produce.
3. “Let them eat organic cake”
European governments and NGOs have insisted poor countries block shipments of food to poor countries. Why? Because the corn in the shipments was genetically modified. Never mind that traditional non-GM corn has undergone generations of genetic modification through cross-fertilization practices. Nevertheless, activists have filled world governments with paranoia about “frankenfood.” Thus nourishing staples with life-saving vitamins have been marked as toxic.
“The opposition to biotechnology is based on exaggeration of the risks of GMOs and denial of the benefits,” writes UC Berkley professor Jack Hollander. That means people in developing countries are going hungry while academics and organic food shoppers bandy about terms like "the precautionary principle." And as activists are jumping on boats to stop shipments of GM food, children are going blind due to vitamin A deficiency (an ailment cheaply and easily cured by a GMO).
4. Myth of the noble savage
Often members of the Western intellectual elite romanticize a contemporary version of the noble savage. Built around notions of egalitarian villages where communal life is harmonious and healthy, these scholars often pass over the brutal aspects of their lives, and downplay the harshest elements of their cultures. Such peoples are said to live in harmony with nature—a feat advanced societies have apparently not been able to achieve. And suggested in the anthropological lore is an implicit rejection of markets and technology, both of which are responsible for the vast majority of environmental improvements made over the last 100 years.
Life expectancies of tribal populations in the developing world range from the 20s to the 40s, but these romanticists don’t care to factor longevity into their assessments of other cultures. In any case, most of the developing world is not made up of small, picturesque tribal communes; but rather impoverished urban dwellers living under the yokes of corrupt, totalitarian governments whose policies of failure are the primary factor for most of the world’s environmental ills.
5. Applause for Mugabe
Speaking of corrupt governments, we should not forget the horrors inflicted by dictators in the name of “land reforms.” At a 2002 Earth Summit in which world leaders were supposed to discuss sustainable development, Robert Mugabe’s words spoke volumes: “Blair, keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe.” My Zimbabwe? Clearly the words of a dictator. But this quote was met with applause from environmentalists and other leaders.
For Mugabe the issue of taking land from white farmers - while at the same time starving his people – is literally and figuratively black and white. "Sustainable development is not possible without agrarian reforms that acknowledge that land comes first before all else and that all else grows from the land," he said. But such Marxist policies rest on the same racist premises used by the British Imperialists who are no longer around. Now that property rights in Zimbabwe have been dissolved and land has been stripped from the white farmers, environmental problems have begun to follow along with the famines.
“As Zimbabwe marks the fourth anniversary of its controversial land redistribution programme, there is widespread concern about the impact this is having on the country's environment," writes Chris Msipa of IPSNews.net. "Many of the peasant farmers who were resettled on land forcibly acquired from white owners lack funds to buy the seed, fertilizer and tools needed to produce a crop. This, combined with poor rains in parts of Zimbabwe, has prompted some peasant farmers to start harvesting other resources instead.” That resource is primarily trees...
1. Bans on DDT have resulted in millions of Malaria deaths
2. Calls for “renewable” (read: infeasible) resources keep people burning dung for energy
3. “Frankenfood” paranoia keeps the world’s hungriest poor from getting the nutrition they need to survive and alleviate disease
4. Myths of the noble savage persist, so life expectancies remain low
5. Support for Mugabe-style “land reforms” wreak environmental devastation and widespread hunger.
In Part Two, we’ll continue the conversation about the Green agenda, in order to expose other ways such policies bring harm to poor countries...
6. Blind eye to property rights
One of the most basic elements of a prosperous society (with a clean environment) is the recognition and enforcement of private property rights. Since many in the contemporary environmental movement share sympathies with either “communal” societies or socialized economies, the idea of private property is ignored, or worse--condemned. However, it is only through enforcement of clearly defined property rights that individuals can be effective stewards of the land, while at the same time possess the legal means to protect their property from polluters, dumpers and other rights-violators. Private property rights are also the only way to avoid so-called ‘tragedies of the commons,’ or situations in which too many people compete for limited resources—resulting in depletion, exploitation, and/or degradation of an area.
Problems of the commons are rife in the developing world. Such problems not only contribute to environmental devastation, but to resource depletion, as well (deforestation of the Brazilian jungle is a good example). Economists almost universally agree that the most efficient allocation of a resource is possible when property rights are respected. Why? Because people who are able to control their own property can not only avoid problems of the commons, but are better able to understand their holding as a long-term investment to be protected, rather than a first come, first served, short term gain. "Capital" says Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, "is the force that raises the productivity of labor and raises the wealth of nations..." But the "mystery of capital" lies in the protection of private property.
7. Anti-capitalism, anti-prosperity
In parallel with this antipathy towards property rights comes a general distaste for capitalism and progress. As the story goes, progress and markets are responsible for the environmental ills we know today. Such mythology may be an outgrowth of the industrial age where, again, property rights were less well-defined, and problems associated with pollution and waste were not yet understood. Today, however, technological progress allows us not only to do more with less (think 1 CD Rom vs. 10 phonebooks), but such phenomena are driven by market forces where benefits are conferred by increasingly efficient use of resources. (Let us not fail to mention that market demand for eco-friendly products is part and parcel to environmental improvement.)
Paradoxically, problems of resource depletion evaporate with markets. For example, the profit-motive among private forestry companies has resulted in an unparallel renewal of forest land in North America, as timber companies replant as many as five trees for each one they cut down. The same cannot be said for the Amazon and Southeast Asian jungles. And while environmental groups attack capitalism and profiteering for mass deforestation, they would do better to question governments whose policies have no mechanism for delineating and enforcing rights to property. Again, capitalism without property rights is not just a contradiction, but a recipe for disaster—a point missed by the leaders of most developing countries.
8. Mandates instead of markets
Most environmentalists are the first to encourage the impulse to fix problems with government interference. For years people have been bludgeoned with the idea that environmental problems are a result of “market failures” requiring intervention by benevolent bureaucrats. Sadly, it is this very notion that keeps the Third World in squalor and environmental hardship. The stories are familiar: as basic economic activity begins to emerge, governments invariably hamstring their citizens with environmental directives. Often they've been pressured into adopting such measures by Big Green NGOs. Sometimes economic progress never gets off the ground, in part because environmental groups discourage countries from developing basic infrastructural needs such as fuel-energy as a first step to expanding commerce—all out of concern that more greenhouse gases will be released into the atmosphere.
9. Zero-population growth?
Some environmentalists think that people are a plague. If there are too many people in an area, then it becomes unsustainable for a population to continue to reproduce. Thus, say the proponents of zero-population growth (ZPGs): curb reproduction. But curbing population growth can be at best intrusive, at worst, genocidal. Have ZPG theorists considered the idea that problems of the developing world may not lie with population issues at all?
"Take the unhappy country of India, for example," says Edmund Opitz, writing for Liberty Haven, "poverty is everywhere and misery weighs down the spirit. Why is India in such a parlous condition? Is it her "teeming masses"?
There are indeed a lot of people in that subcontinent, nearly 700 million of them; but the territory is vast. India's population density is just about one-half that of the Netherlands, and we never speak of the teeming masses of Holland. England has fifty more people per square kilometer than India, Japan has 117 more people per square kilometer than India." Clearly, then, India's population isn't responsible for the country's plight. Could the problem have to do more with institutions?
10. Dogmatism
Underlying all of the afforementioned ways the mainstream environmental agenda hurts the poor of the world is simple dogmatism. Such dogmatism springs from of a refusal to embrace alternative solutions to environmental problems lest they smack of "greed" or consessions to the Right. Thus, ideas that come from enemies, real or imagined, are bad by default. In this way, the interest of defining oneself politically has worked both against the causes the environmental movement holds dear, and against a world whose development is being retarded by bad policy. Sadly, its this developing world that has the most to lose.
Max Borders is the project director and editor of aBetterEarth.org.