…feel infinite…

The other, and more absurd, notion that Greenpeace insists on is to cut industry, and have every country the world over use high priced solar, wind, and water energy to power plants, mills, homes, and anything else that uses electricity and power.  Greenpeace has been lobbying for years against the spread of big industry to poor countries, and the lessening of the use of fossil fuels.  While big industry is the second greatest contributor to the theory of global warming, getting rid of big industry, or barring developing countries from using it, comes at a great cost to human life.

I am not talking about the comforts of prepackaged foods, cheap DVDs, or any sort of material goods; No, this is about developing countries that do not have the means to keep up with the western world.  Places like Kenya, Bangladesh, Guatemala, and Haiti.  Places that have little resources and where large amounts of people live on less that one dollar a day.  Places where people are just trying to get through the day they are living in and cannot afford to worry about the next day, they might not make it if they cannot eat.

Greenpeace goes into places like this and instead of helping them, insists they use better means of energy, renewable sources rather than coal, wood, or oil for heating their huts, and often attempts to bar them if they mine for their own natural resources.  This is inexcusable.  People living in poverty have no means to clean water after it has been fouled, have no way to replant trees after they have cut them down for fire, yet they are expected to have solar panels on their straw and mud shacks, or wind turbines to power their hospitals.  Hundreds of millions would die if Greenpeace won this fight.

In the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle (this is the actual video, it’s over 60 minutes, but if you have time, watch it… after you finish my post!) , the camera crew and narrator are in a small village in Kenya, watching a woman make a fire from branches and twigs in her small hut.  She has no fresh water, and the pots she are using are unclean.
The next scene is a UN global warming conference being held near Kenya, and delegates are sitting in a giant, comfortable, well lit auditorium away from the elements.  These campaigners are looking at booths with pictures of Kenyans enjoying looking at wind turbines.  The tables and displays show how happy poor individuals would be with solar and wind energy.
The very next scene, the narrator is talking with a doctor at a hospital (if you could call it that) just outside of Nairobi.  There are two solar panels located on the top of the building.  Inside there are only two devices that use electricity:  the single light bulb, and the refrigerator that holds medicine and blood samples.  With the solar panels, he can only use the light or the refrigerator not both at the same time.  To do so shuts down all power.  This health facility services many towns in the area.

Developing countries cannot expect any time soon that solar, wind, or even nuclear energy will be readily available or cheap enough to use for much needed developing industry or for electricity.  Coal costs about $.05 per kilowatt hour (kWh), while solar energy runs about $.14 per kWh.  This is a big difference, and right now nothing is as efficient as coal burning.

Many African countries have coal and have oil to be mined, but are being told they are not allowed to harvest them, because coal and oil are bad for the environment.  When this can pull a country out of poverty, or provide for citizens, why should they be told they are not allowed to harvest their natural resources?  Poor countries with natural resources are often hurt from the backlash of negativity of fossil fuels, and this in turn contributes more to the poverty of the countries affected.  Unfortunately, if places like the U.S., Great Britain, France, and other major fossil fuel guzzlers were to sharply end consumption then these poor countries would be thrown into an even worse state.

This is a perilous edge for underdeveloped countries that need to find ways to create a steady economy with money for food, and clean water, clothing, and decent shelter.  According to Greenpeace, these nations cannot use their resources to sell and garner money, they cannot use coal electricity to power their hospitals, and they cannot build industry because fossil fuels emit greenhouse gasses.  Greenpeace is actually condemning hundreds of millions, about 1/3 of Earth’s population, to death.

The answer to this riddle, however, is not a pleasant one.  Developing nations must be allowed to utilize the cheap power of coal, natural gas, and oil, and they must be allowed to harvest and sell their natural resources.  This also means there still has to be buyers for it as well.  We cannot just stop the drilling of oil without having some severe consequences, like war and death.  The lives of millions depend on it.  Until ulterior forms of fuel are developed, whether they be cleaner, renewable, or both, developing nations must not be left to suffer due to the prior greed of the U.S. and Europe.  These ulterior forms must be readily available, and cheap enough for even poor countries to be able to use them.  We, as a developed nation, need to help the people who do not have all the comforts that we do, and we should not bar them from having it because they cannot afford it.

Overall, Greenpeace must not be allowed to take such drastic and harmful measures to ensure the reduction of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions.  Their allegations are not well thought out, and often only benefit a few wealthy nations.  They are sabotaging their own pleas to pay attention to global warming.  Their blatant disregard for clearner nuclear fusl and for the health and well being of millions of impoverished individuals is appalling.  If they truely believed in helping the human race and the Earth they would look at all aspects, not just one.  Stopping the threat of global warming will not help the human race if there is no human race left to help.  Reverting back to pre-industrail times is not the answer.  Then again, they are Greenpeace, maybe they only want to help the whales?