electricity

The Future Looks Bright for African Countries

kaykiser

Longer Term Solutions

  1. End Population Control Campaigns
  2. End DDT Bans
  3. Implement Hygiene Education Programs
  4. Aggressively Treat All Worm Infestations
  5. End Insistence on Subsistence Farming
  6. End the European Union Ban on Importing GMO Crops
  7. End Insistence on Solar and Wind Power Only
  8. Provide Electricity and Clean Water Systems for City Slums and Rural Villages
  9. Encourage Foreign and Domestic Investment

 

  1. End Population Control Campaigns. We need to work to stop these campaigns by groups such as UNFPA, USAID, WHO, World Bank, International Planned Parenthood, Population Council, and Club of Rome. A few ways to do this are to
  • Expose the lies about overpopulation, their sources, and their aim. The overpopulation myth is all about socialist control, racism, elitism, and misguided environmentalism. Poverty, not overpopulation is harmful to the environment. Raising people out of extreme poverty will benefit the environment.
  • Defund all programs that promote involuntary or forced sterilizations, birth control, or abortion. Promote voluntary, informed choices only. President Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which withholds funds from foreign aid programs that promote or perform abortions. He also defunded UNFPA through the Kemp-Kasten amendment, which prohibits funding for any organization supporting coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization. Unfortunately, some other population control advocacy groups have stepped in to fill the gap. The US must pressure the UN and member countries to end this practice worldwide. The US must also defund Planned Parenthood.
  • End overstocking population control drugs, devices and sterilization supplies in hospitals and clinics. Use the funds from this and other population control activities to stock medical facilities with medicines and supplies for endemic diseases such as malaria, TB and parasites. Medical facilities need supplies for treating injuries, surgical supplies and vaccination sera to save children’s lives.
  • Provide sanitation, clean water and soap for handwashing for all clinics and hospitals.
  • Train local people as medical assistants in the tradition of the field medic as a first line of defense.
  • End Western values-based sex education in schools that encourages abortion, multiple partners, and thus sexually transmitted diseases. These practices are contrary to local cultural and religious beliefs and practices. We must respect their cultural and religious beliefs, which value children and family above all else. Imposing Western values on them destroys families and results in the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Encourage monogamy and fidelity in marriage to one sexual partner as one of the best ways to reduce sexually transmitted diseases.
  1. End DDT bans. Begin widespread spraying in homes and medicate victims to cut the cycle of malaria and other insect-borne diseases. The Environmental Protection Agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer and other agencies that regulate possible toxins must change their regulations to allow DDT to be used for control of mosquitos and other insects. India is a good example of how effective this approach can be. In several government facilities, India manufactures DDT and other insecticides that can be purchased by people in African and other developing countries. India sprays DDT on interior walls of homes twice a year in malaria prone areas. This practice is a good first step in ending the malaria cycle and has greatly reduced the deaths from malaria in India. Africa could reduce theirs accordingly with DDT on interior walls as well as bed nets. Bed nets alone are not a good substitute for DDT spraying.

 Global Malaria Deaths[1]  India is included in the South-East Asia group.

  1. Implement Hygiene Education Programs. Focus on educating all people, especially rural poor, about microbes and hygiene. Teach skills needed to provide clean water such as: How to filter and purify water; How to make soap and set up handwashing stations; How to dig wells and latrines; Safe use of composted wastes for fields; How to keep waste and other contaminants out of streams.
  2. Aggressively Treat All Worm Infestations. Alongside treating for worms it’s important to provide shoes for all children to prevent re-infestation.
  3. End Insistence on Subsistence Farming as a more sustainable method. Encourage modern agricultural methods and improved varieties that are better suited to their environment, with higher nutrition and higher yields. This also ends or reduces slash-and-burn deforestation.
  4. End the European Union Ban on Importing GMO Crops. This and other protectionist philosophies, stagnate development in European countries and cause African countries to reject improved crops. Educate the people and the leaders of developing countries about modern agricultural methods and the benefits of GMO and other high yield varieties.  Educate European leaders and farmers about the potential market for their goods in developing countries. This can be accomplished through advertising campaigns to the general public, not just entrenched government leaders.
  5. End Insistence on Solar and Wind Power Only. Encourage large and small electricity projects by all means possible, including fossil fuel, hydroelectric, geothermal, and nuclear. Fund large and small hydroelectric and fossil fuel power plants and transmission lines into rural areas through loans. Until larger projects and grid systems can be implemented, promote local mini and micro hydroelectric, geothermal and fossil fuel systems. These small systems can be incorporated into a wider grid when that becomes available.
  6. Provide Electricity and Clean Water Systems for All City Slums. Improve housing, sanitation, and clean up standing water and wastes that breed insects and disease. Spray insecticides regularly to reduce insects that carry diseases. Cleaning up the slums can go a long way toward encouraging investments.
  7. Encourage Foreign and Domestic Investment. It is important to encourage investment in all sectors including agricultural, natural resource extraction, manufacturing, service sector and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). It is time to re-examine the company town concept. Historically used for extraction industries in isolated areas, company towns can be useful for other businesses such as manufacturing, service and STEM in order to attract, train, and house employees and their families.

Encourage building of company towns with homes, hospitals, schools, and markets for employees in remote areas that provide electricity, clean water, latrines or sanitation systems. These company town projects should include progressively extending roads beyond the town over time to help others not directly employed but that could market agricultural products to town inhabitants. Such extensions over time can provide the basis of a larger transportation system that can encourage further foreign investment in newly opened business centers. Inhabitants of shanty towns (city slums) can be employed and live in new company towns near cities.

The future of Africa looks bright and development is booming in the cities and in more developed agricultural areas. The average GDP growth rate for sub-Saharan African countries is 6.2 percent. Cote d’Ivoiri, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo have GDP growth rates over 7 percent. This is great, but somewhat misleading since a percent of a smaller economy is a smaller amount of growth in real numbers. However, if these growth rates continue as they have been, it will result in real economic progress.

Although historically agriculture and extraction of natural resources have been the mainstays of African prosperity and development, half of all foreign investment in recent years has been outside natural resources. Of the countries that have this profile, a group of countries called the African Lions, which include Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia, have led the way. Rwanda has had a growth rate of 9 percent since 2001 because of its favorable business creation policies. In Rwanda child mortality has been reduced, nearly all children have access to education and 98 percent have access to healthcare. Ethiopia has a growth rate of 10 percent but 20 percent of the population are still in extreme poverty with nutritional issues. Botswana has become a leader in online banking due to its low corruption levels and secure business environment.

Corruption is still an issue in many of the developing countries in Africa and elsewhere. Corruption, along with domestic unrest, is one of the major barriers to attracting foreign investment. This corruption is encouraged, supported, and prolonged by foreign aid given to the governments, not directly to the people or to infrastructure contractors. Many government leaders have fat bank accounts by skimming most of the aid that is intended to help the poor and build infrastructure. Even when aid is given in the form of goods, not money, a similar picture emerges. The people may get very little of it as the goods filling warehouses are either sold on the black market to the highest bidder or are left to rot for political reasons.

Any foreign aid needs to be tied to full accountability and transparency by governments about how the money is used and its impact on the people. Free ride foreign aid to governments must be ended to make leaders more accountable to the people, not just their foreign donors. This can lead to free and fair elections.

[1] WHO, 2016

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My award winning book, Saving Africa From Lies That Kill: How Myths about the Environment and Overpopulation are Destroying Third World Countries is now available in print and eBook through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books a Million.

Award-Winning Finalist in the Social Change category of the 2019 International Book Awards

After reading the book, please remember to review it on Amazon; share it with a friend and do your part to end bad practices. Visit my blog for more information and to sign up for email updates at https://savingafricafromliesthatkill.com/   and like my Facebook page.

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Overpopulation – The Deadly Myth Behind The Other Myths

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Who says the world is overpopulated? And what does that mean anyway? Hunger?  Crowding? Environmental harm?  For over 200 years we’ve been told that the world is overpopulated. But is it? Check this out.

In 1798, Thomas Malthus thought the world was overpopulated when world population was under one billion. In his book, An Essay on the Principles of Population, he advocated not supporting the poor and controlling the population. He was wrong.

When world population was about 1.3 billion, Charles Darwin, who’s Theory of Evolution was based on Malthus’ book, thought the struggle for survival would cause the extinction of underdeveloped cultures by developed peoples. He was wrong.

Francis Galton, creator of Eugenics, the so-called science of improving the human race, thought the African races were so inferior genetically that Chinese should be settled in Africa to drive the Negro races to extinction and replace them. He was wrong.

Around 1920 when the population was about 1.9 billion, Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood and a prominent eugenicist, believed we needed to get rid of “human weeds,” including dark skinned people from Southern Europe, Africa and India as well as the mentally or physically impaired. She advocated for sterilization, birth control, and abortion. She was wrong.

In the 1930s when world population was about 2 billion, Adolf Hitler believed the world was overpopulated and sought to gain “Lebensraum” (living room) by invading other countries and exterminating “inferior” people, including Jews and Gypsies. By doing so he sought to create a super race of Arian Germans.  He was wrong.

In 1966 when the world population was 3.3 billion, to control population, under President Johnson, US AID began requiring population control quotas as a condition for receiving foreign aid. Mass sterilization camps were set up in poor countries using equipment supplied by the UN and US. He was wrong.

Meanwhile, in the 1960s the Green Revolution of higher yield, more disease resistant and more nutritious varieties, increased crop yields by orders of magnitude, making it possible to feed the world without sacrificing forests and other pristine wilderness areas. 

When The Population Bomb was published in 1968 by Paul Ehrlich, world population was about 3.7 billion. He believed the world was overpopulated and required drastic action to reduce the population in order to prevent mass starvation and collapse of the society. He was wrong.

In 1972, after nearly 30 years of controlling disease carrying insects, DDT was banned by the EPA in spite of overwhelming evidence refuting claims of harm; the ban was based more on political fears of growing populations in developing countries than on real science or perceived harm. Before the ban DDT eliminated Malaria in the developed world. Developing countries were threatened with loss of foreign aid if they did not discontinue DDT use. Most did, but India did not comply.

Today the world population is about 7.5 billion. USAID, UNFPA, (UN Fund for Population Activities), UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), WHO, World Bank, International Planned Parenthood, Population Council, Marie Stopes and other groups continue the Overpopulation Myth with abortion, sterilization, IUD implantation and birth control activities in poor countries around the world.  They are still wrong.

So, is the world overpopulated? Not by any measure. Let’s look at what we mean by overpopulated.

Do we have enough food for everyone? Yes. Thanks to modern agricultural techniques and high yield crops there is more than enough for at least 11 billion people without any increase in acres cultivated.  Advancing technology will probably multiply the yield still further as it has in the past.  Myths against modern pesticides, herbicides, modern agricultural techniques and biotech crop enhancements (aka GMO) are used to keep poor countries on subsistence agriculture, which results in deforestation to replace depleted fields.

Is the food distributed fairly? No. Other than disasters and wars, hunger has more to do with local politics than with food supplies.  Corrupt governments, propped up by government to government foreign aid, which the poor rarely see, are incentivized to help with international population control schemes, but not to build infrastructure, attract investment and help to raise the standard of living of their own rural poor. As long as the people are kept poor, the aid money keeps coming, so corrupt governments have little or no incentive to improve conditions for their people. Foreign aid must be replaced by foreign and domestic investment in infrastructure with accountability.

Is there enough room for all the people? Compared to the land area of the earth, the population is very small. For perspective, if all the people in the world were placed in an area the size of Texas, each person would have almost 93 square meters.  A family of four would have 372 square meters. That’s about 4000 square feet, enough for a 2000 square foot house and a yard or garden.  This thought experiment puts population in perspective with the size of the earth. No one is suggesting we actually do this, except for the loony left who are grasping at straws to defeat this argument against the overpopulation myth. 

Global average population is 55 people per square kilometer of land area, excluding Antarctica. That’s 17.96 acres per family of four. In 2016, over 54% of the population lived in cities, which covers only 2.7% of the land.  That means that 46% of the population is rural and lives on 97.3% of the land area. That calculates to 26 people /km2 in rural areas or 38 acres per family of four.  Yes, I know that large areas are uninhabitable. Even if we assumed 50% uninhabitable, that’s still a lot of land per person.  The fact that only 10% of the land is actually inhabited doesn’t change the picture.  There is still a lot of land out there to accommodate and feed a larger population. All this doesn’t even count the 71% of the earth’s surface that is water, which is a food source and a highway between markets.

Is Overpopulation causing Climate Change? As a part of the biosphere, the human race is a small contributor to the total carbon and carbon dioxide gas, and is exceeded by orders of magnitude by land and sea vertebrate animals, and even more extremely by insects and other invertebrates, both in numbers and total mass. One estimate claims there are 300 pounds of insects for every human pound, or 1.4 billion insects per person. With almost 2 million different species described so far and possibly many more un-described, estimates vary widely, even for human populations, especially in poor countries. Corrupt governments may over estimate numbers and under report economic conditions to receive more foreign aid dollars.

Is the environment being harmed by too many people? No. Poverty, including subsistence farming, not population, causes environmental harm and deforestation.  Modern agriculture and higher yield crop varieties can end deforestation and provide surplus crops to sell.  Roads, electricity, clean water and disease control can provide a healthy workforce and energy to attract investors and run industry. Historically, improved infrastructure and opportunity also stabilize populations and reduce family size. By keeping the poor in poverty, environmentalists actually are doing more harm to the environment. Raising standards of living means people will be able to care for their environment.

Many developed countries have bought into the overpopulation myth to the point that their birth rates are below replacement value. Japan, which reached one of the lowest global birth rates of 1.4 in 2014, has started paying people to have children because of the looming demographic catastrophe of too few people to work and support the elderly who cannot work. Some of the highest density areas of the world are the richest.  Look at Shanghai. It is not only the most populated city in the world, 24 million, with an average population density of 2050/km2 (3854/km2 urban) but is one of the most prosperous. 

Rural poor areas in developing countries are underpopulated. With diseases from insects and contaminated water taking a high toll and attrition from migration into cities by the young and healthy, there are not enough healthy people to build infrastructure and markets and raise the standard of living of the rural poor.  They already have population control by disease and poverty.  They certainly don’t need birth control, sterilization and abortion. 

Is the planet overpopulated?  By all measures of overpopulation, the earth is far from capacity to support its people.  Since overpopulation advocates have been scaring us for 200 years, why should be believe what they keep saying?  Quit worrying about an assumed problem that has yet to materialize.  The real problem is with the population control advocates, the abortionists, the sterilizers and the international governmental and nongovernmental organizations that keep paying these organizations for killing off the hope of the future while keeping people in extreme poverty: poor, sick, isolated, ignorant and controlled. Free market solutions are the answer, not money given to prop up corrupt government officials, which the poor rarely see.

The rural poor in developing countries need disease control, electricity and roads to end isolation. They need Employment, Education, Investment, Infrastructure and Disease Control to join the 21st century.  It is possible and you can help.

How can you help? Get involved through charities, investments and campaigning against policies that hurt and oppress the poor.  Be an advocate for economic development and against population control.

Note: Updated from an earlier post, June 2019.

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Learn the truth and how you can help change this horrible situation of longstanding crimes against poor countries by international organizations and advocacy groups.

Read the first chapter free through Bookfunnel at www.bit.ly/savingafricachapter1

Award-Winning Finalist in the Social Change category of the 2019 International Book Awards

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Renewable Energy: Highly Inefficient and Environmentally Harmful

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Renewable energy – not so clean, not so sustainable and not good for developing countries

Those profiting from the Climate Change and the renewable energy game don’t want you to see the Planet of the Humans movie, which reveals the ugly truths behind popular renewable energy schemes. It has been deleted from Youtube but was preserved at the site below. Watch and learn.

via Hide & Seek: Media Keep Burying Mike Moore’s Planet of the Humans & Bloggers Keeps Digging It Up — STOP THESE THINGS

NOTE: Although this is a good expose of renewable energy schemes, including solar, wind and biomass, there is even more to the story.  Cleaner and more sustainable alternatives are not mentioned, including nuclear, abundant clean natural gas, hydroelectric and geothermal energy.  Ecological harm, although mentioned as disrupting the environment, did not really include the huge tole on birds, bats and beneficial insects that are being chopped up or burned alive by wind turbines or mirror array solar energy farms.  The movie paints a depressing no-win picture of dwindling scarce resources, burgeoning population and unsolvable pollution problems. All of these assumptions are unfounded or exaggerated, now as they were 40 years ago.

Poverty, not high population, causes environmental harm. Raising the standard of living of poor countries through investment in energy,  transportation and healthcare infrastructure and jobs, as well as modern agricultural practices, can protect the environment, stabilize the population and reduce deforestation.

Additionally, to insist that poor countries forego fossil fuels, which have developed modern nations, and go straight to unreliable and intermittent wind or solar energy, is irresponsible or criminal.  See earlier posts at this site, and/or get my book: Saving Africa from Lies that Kill: How Myths about the Environment & Overpopulation are Destroying Third World Countries. To buy the book from Amazon, click here.  Read the introduction and first chapter free through Bookfunnel by clicking here 

 

 

 

Investments, not handouts are needed in African countries

kaykiser

New Hope for Africa through Investment and Freedom from UN interference

There are two worlds in countries of sub-Saharan Africa and many other underdeveloped countries, the urban world of development, investment and progress, and the rural world that is isolated, poor and struggling to survive. Between these two are the more developed agricultural areas near cities and the slums surrounding cities where rural people who come to cities for more opportunity, end up living in deplorable conditions without proper infrastructure.  The areas with modern agriculture have many of the amenities of the city such as access to electricity, clean water, sanitation and roads, but the slums have more in common with the rural poor, without access to clean water, sanitation and sometimes electricity.

In most developing countries the leaders tend to concentrate infrastructure development in urban areas while largely ignoring the needs of the isolated rural poor. Because the businesses of the cities attract investment, and bring in both market value and taxes, they are given priority.  This is natural since the cities are the hope of future economic development, and attracting investment from other countries is one of the main means of improving the lives of all of their countrymen in the long run.  However, part of the funds available from this economic development should go into extending electrical distribution and transportation over time to the rural communities.  In the short term it makes sense to support the cities, but in the long term extending support to the rural poor can further raise the overall economy and attract more investment. Rural electrification, transportation and opportunities through markets and business investments will raise many of those in extreme poverty to a higher economic level.

Investment, not aid, is the answer to raising developing countries out of poverty. See next section for information about the investment climate in Africa. Aid should only be a temporary measure for support in emergencies and for infrastructure building in the form of loans that can be repaid when conditions have improved.  Aid should never be used for permanent or long term support of generationally poor populations.  What you subsidize, you get more of.  The rural poor don’t need hand-outs; they need jobs, electricity and roads so they can climb out of poverty.

The worst type of aid is government to government foreign aid, which should be ended as soon as practical. Typically less than 2% of this type of aid goes to improving the lives of ordinary people.  Most of it goes to corrupt leaders and their administrations. Ending the practice of government to government foreign aid will reduce or end much of the government corruption and make leaders more responsible to their constituents. If they are dependent on the tax base and not foreign donors they will have incentive to build the infrastructure in order to attract business investors and grow the economy, and thus the tax base. Building the transportation and energy sectors into more rural areas would then make practical sense in order to attract investors and open markets to rural agricultural production.

China is investing heavily in African energy projects such as hydroelectric and fossil fuel power plants. While I would like to assume that China has only benign motives, that has not been their history.  The Western world would be wise to invest in similar projects and not just throw money at corrupt governments in an attempt to stave off Chinese communist incursions and power.

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The book: Saving Africa from Lies that Kill: How Myths about the Environment and Overpopulation are Destroying Third World Countries was published in September, 2018. Print and ebook are available online.

My first book, Perverted Truth Exposed: How Progressive Philosophy has Corrupted Science was published in 2016. It is available in print and ebook, on line only, through Amazon, Books-A-Million and Barnes & Noble.  See the companion blog at www.realscienceblog.com  for related posts and pages.

African Development Bank approves €8 million technical assistance grant to support preparation of Ruzizi IV Hydro Power Project in the Great Lakes region — Database of Press Releases related to Africa – APO-Source

Quote kaykiser

The Board of Directors of African Development Bank Group (https://www.AfDB.org) has approved an €8 million grant drawn from the European Union’s Africa Investment Platform (EU-AIP) to support the preparation of the Ruzizi IV Hydropower Project. The plant will be situated on the Ruzizi River between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo and will supply […]

via African Development Bank approves €8 million technical assistance grant to support preparation of Ruzizi IV Hydro Power Project in the Great Lakes region — Database of Press Releases related to Africa – APO-Source

Climate Alarmist Banks Go Carbon-Colonialist

kaykiser
African Development Bank caves to UN and Environmentalist Pressure and abandons electrification goals.
See excerpts from this TownHall.com article below.  Read the full article by clicking here.

Climate Alarmist Banks Go Carbon-colonialist

Paul Driessen
Paul Driessen
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Posted: Dec 28, 2019 12:01 AM

. . .

Climate Alarmist Banks Go Carbon-colonialistSource: AP Photo/Stephen Wandera

Editor’s note: This column is authored by David Wojick. 
Africa has the world’s lowest electrification rate. Its power consumption per capita is just 613 kilowatt-hours per year, compared to 6,500 kWh in Europe and 13,000 in the United States, African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwumi Adesina observed in July 2017. That’s 9.4% of EU and 4.7% of US electricity consumption. It’s equivalent to Americans having electricity only 1 hour a day, 8 hours a week, 411 hours per year – at totally unpredictable times, for a few minutes, hours or days at a stretch.It’s actually even worse than that. Excluding significantly electrified South Africa, sub-Sahara Africans consume an almost irrelevant 181 kWh of electricity per capita – 1.4% of the average American’s!

In Sub-Saharan Africa, over 600 million people have no electricity, and over 700 million rely on wood, grass and dung for cooking and heating. The region is home to 16% of the world’s population, and 53% of those without electricity. By 2050, its urban populations could increase by 600 million.

Determined to transform the “dark continent,” the AfDB launched a $12-billion New Deal on Energy in 2017 and a Light Up and Power Africa initiative in July 2018. It frequently emphasized that access to sufficient supplies of reliable, affordable modern energy – including fossil fuels – is critical for the continent’s social and economic development. Without energy, it is impossible to create jobs, increase productivity, reduce inequality, improve people’s health and wellbeing, or end poverty.

The bank’s lofty goal for its energy New Deal is 100% access to electricity in urban areas, and 95% in rural areas, by 2025. In July 2017, Mr. Adesina told the African Union Summit he was excited that “Japan has answered our call” to “adopt a balanced energy mix” that includes “its ultra-super critical clean coal technologies” that remove sulfur, nitrogen oxides and particulates, while greatly reducing CO2 emissions.

In 2018, the bank approved seed money for a Nigerian coal project and geared up to finance a 350MW coal plant in Senegal. It also initiated plans for a $2-billion coal-fired power station in the Kenya’s port city of Lamu, after the IMF, World Bank and other western lenders rebuffed Kenya.

But then Mr. Adesina and the AfDB caved in to carbon colonialist pressure. The bank now says almost nothing about coal or even natural gas. Its new themes include: responding to global concerns about climate change, gradually adopting a “low-carbon and sustainable growth path,” significantly reducing reliance on fossil fuels, and transitioning to “green growth” and “clean renewable energy,”

In September 2019, the bank announced that it planned to begin scrapping coal-fired power plants all across Africa, build “the largest solar zone” in the world, and pull funding for the Lamu power plant. “We’re getting out of coal,” Mr. Adesina said. “Coal is the past, and renewable energy is the future.”

So the AfDB has joined the World Bank, Goldman Sachs and other Multilateral anti-Development Banks in caring more about climate alarmism and avoiding criticism from the likes of Greta, the perpetually aggrieved and angry Grinch of Christmas 2019 – than they do about safeguarding the lives, livelihoods, health and living standards of hundreds of millions of electricity-deprived Africans.

This 180-degree flip-flop is delusional, dysfunctional and disingenuous. For many, it will be lethal.

. . .

Finally, banishing fossil fuels (and nuclear), and focusing on pseudo-renewable energy will mean millions of children and parents will continue to suffer and die needlessly every year from diseases of poverty and energy deprivation. This eco-manslaughter at the hands of climate activists and banks must not continue.

. . .

Read the full article here.

 

UK aid to boost access to finance for sub-Saharan Africa — Financing for Development in Africa

Quote kaykiser

New UK aid package will help mobilise £500 million in private sector investment and create 50,000 jobs across sub-Saharan Africa. UK aid to mobilise over £500 million of private sector investment, creating over 50,000 jobs in sub-Saharan Africa. The package will support financial start-ups and entrepreneurs and boost economic growth across the region. It will […]

via UK aid to boost access to finance for sub-Saharan Africa — Financing for Development in Africa

Get Out of the Way! Let Africa catch up to developed countries

kaykiser
 get out of the way!! UN & advocacy groups keep Africa and Developing Countries where the entire Preindustrial world was in the past

Much of Africa and the developing world are where the whole world was before the advances in technology and knowledge in the 19th and 20th century; the entire world was struggling, poor and sick, so that even the more well-off people had short lifespans due to preventable and curable diseases, poor nutrition and infections.  In the developed world, widespread acceptance of germ theory and the development of antibiotics and vaccines only occurred in the early to mid 20th century.  Malaria, meaning “bad air,’ was only eradicated in the developed world, in the mid 20th century due to 20 plus years of spraying pesticides for effective mosquito control, development of anti-malaria medicines and window screens. Likewise, malaria in poor countries could be reduced or eradicated by allowing proper pesticide use and providing malaria medicines.

Even into the late 20th century, some isolated areas in the developed world did not have electricity, purified water or paved roads and some people still lived in drafty shacks or log cabins, sometimes with dirt floors. Before the improvements in infrastructure, large multi-generational families were the norm because of high childhood death rates and the need for surviving children to care for their parents in a world where there was no social safety net for the disabled and elderly.  Large families also filled the need for labor in a world where mechanical devices were few or lacking and back breaking work was needed for every job, whether agricultural, industrial or domestic.  Without reliable electricity, transportation systems and industrial and agricultural development, we all could be back there now.

Global need for UNFPA population control activities

Source: UN Fund for Population Activities at https://www.unfpa.org/data

This is where rural Africa and underdeveloped countries are now.   What will it take for developing countries to catch up with the developed world?  First, we need to end counterproductive and damaging interference by international organizations that are working under wrong assumptions from the distant past about supposed overpopulation as a cause of environmental harm.  Wrong practices include imposing population control and blocking effective insect and disease control, as well as modern agriculture and infrastructure development, while putting cultural and wildlife preservation above the real immediate needs of the people. Poverty, not overpopulation, causes environmental harm. Improving the economy can stabilize the population and preserve both cultural heritage and wildlife. Modern agricultural practices can end slash and burn deforestation and feed everyone.

Africa needs Investment, Infrastructure, Employment, Education  and Disease Control.

Education in hygiene can end much of the disease burden, facilitate clean water and sanitation systems, and provide a healthy workforce. Education in agricultural, industrial and technical skills can open opportunities for employment, small business earnings and raise their standard of living.  Transportation in the form of improved and extended roads and railroads can end isolation, encourage foreign investment and provide access to markets, employment opportunities, education and medical facilities.

Reliable electricity is important for economic growth and can facilitate the development of transportation systems, medical facilities and industrial investment, all of which cannot run on intermittent and varying power as provided by wind and solar power. Solar panels on huts are a start, but should only be a temporary energy solution until reliable electrical systems can be installed and extended into rural areas. Solar panels should never be used as a substitute for true energy security or an excuse for neglect.

Poor countries cannot afford to skip the reliable types of energy generation that have made the developed world what it is today. The solution should include all means possible, including hydroelectric, geothermal, fossil fuel and nuclear power.  Africa has enough hydroelectric potential to supply all of their needs for the foreseeable future. Hydroelectric power is both clean and reliable. In Africa alone, over 200 hydroelectric dams have been blocked by environmentalists. This must stop!

Africa needs Investment, Infrastructure, Employment, Education  and Disease Control.

Foreign aid must be replaced by investment in infrastructure. Most of the foreign aid is given to prop up corrupt governments. Leaders become rich while most of the aid is not used for famine relief or to build rural infrastructure and seldom reaches the people in need. Government to government foreign aid props up corrupt leaders, makes them accountable only to their donors, not the people, and prolongs poverty. Leaders that depend on foreign aid, not the tax base, are less likely to want to attract investment in new businesses or to invest in infrastructure that facilitates economic growth. As long as the problems are not solved, foreign aid money keeps coming, so corrupt leaders benefit from keeping their countries poor and controlled.

Foreign aid, other than temporary disaster relief, must be replaced with investment in infrastructure including extended electrical systems, powered by all means available, and improved and extended roads, railroads, airports and bridges, as well as education and medical facilities, and industry. The aim is to raise the economy so that poor countries no longer need outside help, but rather are net contributors to the world economy, or at least are self sufficient. It can be done and you can help.

What can you do? Lots! Here are a few suggestions from my book. Start by contacting government officials and elected representatives to demand that perpetual government to government foreign aid be replaced with accountable infrastructure investment, and that abuses by the UN and other organizations be eliminated and better practices be implemented ASAP.  Donate to charities that help build infrastructure such as World Vision and Samaritan’s Purse. Volunteer to go and work with these organizations in poor countries.  Invest in businesses/industries that are selling or buying African goods or are locating new businesses in Africa, or are offering real infrastructure assistance, or are improving medical and educational facilities.

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My award winning book, Saving Africa From Lies That Kill: How Myths about the Environment and Overpopulation are Destroying Third World Countries is now available online and in book stores everywhere. In print and eBook through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books a Million.

Award-Winning Finalist in the Social Change category of the 2019 International Book Awards

After reading the book, please remember to review it on Amazon; share it with a friend and do your part to end bad practices. Visit my blog for more information and to sign up for email updates at https://savingafricafromliesthatkill.com/   and like my Facebook page.

Read the first chapter free through Bookfunnel by clicking here 

Reliable Electricity is Essential to Economic Development

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No Roads and No Electricity: Why Fossil Fuels are Indispensable for Development

 By Vijay Jayaraj

I live in the Silicon Valley of India, Bangalore. Except for the tech companies, there aren’t many similarities between Bangalore (now Bengaluru) and the Silicon Valley in California.

I live in the northern part of the city. Roads here remain in an unusable condition. They are worse than any bad road you would find in the U.S. The road leading to my neighborhood—frequented by thousands of cars every day—has remained dug up for more than 400 days now. In fact, reports indicate that around 30,000 roads in the city of Bengaluru remain either dug up or in worse condition.

Electricity infrastructure experiences frequent failures and inability to cope with even a slight drizzle of rain. Power blackouts—like the one that occurred in New York in early July—are an everyday event in many parts of India.

That is an appalling situation even by Third World standards, given that the city is the hub of some of the richest tech companies in the world.

Despite rapid economic development in India, some of India’s biggest cities still lack basic infrastructure and sanitation facilities. One reason is how rapidly its economy has grown—outpacing the growth of its infrastructure.

With 1.3 billion people, India’s developing economy can only achieve infrastructure progress in its major cities by achieving rapid economic progress. The economic progress in turn is primarily dependent on its energy sector. Energy is the backbone of any developing economy.

Ever since the liberalization of its economy in the 1990s, India has progressed by leaps and bounds. The manufacturing and service industries are slowly drawing people away from agriculture.

Many forget that this propulsion of India’s economy in the past three decades, and of any growing economy for that matter, was made possible because fossil fuels have provided energy and improved agricultural outputs: the two key pillars of India’s economy.

Today, India produces more electricity than required, but the transmission infrastructure is far behind the standards of developed countries. Fossil fuel provides more than three-fourths of the country’s energy. Fossil fuel-based fertilizers and pesticides have helped the country produce enough food for domestic consumption and export.

Twenty years ago, everyone I knew was aware of the fact that coal is one of the major solutions to our energy problems. We were right.

Today, coal is not only the country’s largest contributor to electricity, it is also the cheapest and most abundant source, resulting in uninterrupted power supply in places that have good grid infrastructure.

Our infrastructure—including transport and other public utility systems—will improve only as our economy continues to use the coal reserves, the existing oil resources, and the newly discovered natural gas reserves.

India’s defiant embrace of fossil fuels, despite pressure from anti-fossil establishments, gives hope to residents like me who can dream about a future with drivable roads and uninterrupted power supply.

Featured image by John Fornander on Unsplash.

Help Developing Countries Join the 21st Century

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How You Can Help Raise Economies and Improve Lives in Developing Countries

Reposted: Some social sites said this post was too long, so you can read the complete version at my blog here https://wp.me/p9Wxqa-d1 (recommended), or read the condensed version below which necessarily leaves out some information and references.

The list of things that need to be done to raise Africa and other developing countries out of extreme poverty and usher them into the twenty-first century is both comprehensive and achievable. Many of them involve ending interference by international organizations that often have hidden agendas unrelated to the welfare of the poor or raising the economy.

Dependency on foreign aid supports and encourages corruption and lack of accountability of government officials; it mires developing countries in debt from foreign aid in the form of low interest loans, causes inflation, discourages infrastructure improvements and economic development, and is devastating to the poor who rarely benefit from it. Instead, those in extreme poverty need education, employment, investment and infrastructure.

Included in these goals is a need for good health and relief from isolation through vehicle passable roads. As shown in previous posts, for example: Get Out of the Way! Let Africa catch up to developed countries, Immediate Solutions for Africa’s problems,  Long Term Solutions to Raise Developing Countries out of Extreme Poverty, there are reasonable steps to solving these problems, both in the short term through local infrastructure investments, and longer term though financing of larger infrastructure projects such as transportation projects, hydroelectric power dams and electrical transmission systems.

Business and industrial investment and trade are the ultimate means to raise their economies out of extreme poverty.  There are inviting investment opportunities, both foreign and domestic, for example see earlier posts: Investment Opportunities in Africa, New US Build Act encourages investment in Africa. The workforce is there; they just need more job opportunities, education and improved health.

As a whole, it seems like an insurmountable task, but taken item by item and step by step these problems are infinitely solvable. We have the advantage of not only having resources to help, but vast numbers of people who are disgusted with the state of affairs, want to raise the impoverished, and are willing to help, financially or through good old-fashioned, roll-up-your-sleeves hard work.

 What you can do, individually or in groups

In summary, we need to stop international organizations from continuing the propaganda and activities that have kept developing countries from advancing and that have prevented them from catching up with the rest of the world; and we need to raise the destitute out of extreme poverty through free trade by building infrastructure and improving employment opportunities.

environmental harm and failure to advance are blamed on the myths of overpopulation and inferiority of poor peoples. The truth is that poverty, often caused by deliberate deprivation and isolation, not overpopulation, causes environmental harm. Raising poor peoples out of extreme poverty, improving their health and implementing modern agricultural practices will stabilize the population and end deforestation.

 Get involved in any way you can, as often as you can.

I do not have all of the answers, but here are a few suggestions that can guide you to take action. Some of you, no doubt, will have other, perhaps better, ideas. The key is to get involved and stay involved in any way you can.

Information Sharing and Recruiting

Share information about short term infrastructure building charities and investment agencies through Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites. Make a YouTube video, blog, or website encouraging investment and exposing the crimes of international organizations

Inform as many people as possible about the true agenda and practices behind the following euphemistic phrases and biased propaganda.  Family Planning and Reproductive Health, Sustainable Agriculture, Climate friendly power, Cultural preservation.

 Contact agencies and government officials that are able to change things and spread the word about the need for ending practices such as population control programs, denial of DDT, denial of GMO and high yield crops, and modern agriculture; denial of clean water, sanitation and hygiene education; and denial of electricity by all means except solar and wind.

Call or write your congressman, the president, cabinet secretaries, state department heads. Include local and state governments and business organizations that can partner with organizations in developing countries or encourage investment.

 Join or donate to groups opposed to these misguided actions or that support major improvements. For example Population Research Institute is fighting the overpopulation myth and human rights abuses in population control programs in thirty countries.

 Send my book, Saving Africa from Lies That Kill: How Myths about the Environment and Overpopulation are destroying Third World Countries or excerpts from it to important people that can get things done and influence others.  Read the first chapter free through Bookfunnel at www.bit.ly/savingafricachapter1. (Kindle version is only $2.99 through Amazon.) Permission is given here to reproduce sections of my book freely to spread its message of hope and recovery.

Follow my blog, Saving Africa from Lies that Kill at www.savingafricafromliesthatkill.com. Reblog posts or use the links to repost on Twitter, Facebook and other social sites.

Charitable Activities

Donate to charities that build immediate infrastructure: wells, toilets, sand dams, sand filters, roads, improved housing, schools, and medical facilities by working directly with the people, not the governments, which may keep most of the donations. Recommended: World Vision, Samaritan’s Purse, Christian Broadcasting Network.

Medicine and health care supplies are badly needed. For many of these organizations, generous donors will match your donation. If you work for a corporation, many of them will match your donations, so you need to ask them if they support the charity to which you want to donate. Because many companies donate most of the materials and supplies, your donations may only have to cover the cost of shipping, so that your gift multiplies by typically five to eight times. Most of these charities have a catalog that allows you to see the options and their cost. Sponsoring a child or family can also be used to build schools and other infrastructure for an entire village.

Check out charities to make sure most of the money donated goes to aid the people, not the administration of the charity or receiving countries’ governments.

Support Christian missionaries in developing countries through your church. Along with preaching the Gospel, missionaries are involved in the communities they service in various ways including teaching, health care, and infrastructure improvements.

Go on summer mission trips with your church or other organization offering medical and educational assistance.

Volunteer to go and use your own talents and skills to help:

  • Build infrastructure such as wells, sand dams, schools, clinics, improved housing, agricultural projects, roads, and more.
  • Teach basic education, hygiene, agriculture, building trades, small business administration, and other needed skills.

Offer scholarships for outstanding students in these countries. Foundations, church and civic groups can sponsor scholarships, grants, or loans for education. Ask about existing scholarship programs and donate to worthy ones that help people from developing countries.

 Visit African and developing countries. Tourism is a significant source of income for many African and other developing countries.

Business Opportunities

Buy products from Africa and other developing countries.

Sell products from Africa and other developing countries in your own online or brick-and-mortar stores using online wholesale suppliers

Support businesses that locate or are willing to locate facilities in African or other developing countries. Inquire about pension and retirement plans to determine and request investments to include stocks and bonds in African or other developing countries.

Invest in African stocks or in companies that invest in Africa and other developing countries or in mining, manufacturing companies, and other industries with facilities in developing countries.

Start a new business: If you have funds to invest in new ventures or own a business, whether in manufacturing, communications, services, merchandising, mining, etc., consider opening a branch in an African or other developing country and hiring and training local people from their abundant workforce.

Build a company town to support their or your new manufacturing, mining or extractive business, their/your local employees and their families. You may want to locate a company town near city slums where there is a ready workforce in need of employment. Company towns can provide safe homes, electricity, clean water and sanitation, education and medical facilities for employees and their families, ensuring a healthy and loyal workforce.

Opportunities abound in African and other developing countries and are just waiting for someone with the insight and courage to implement them. Africans don’t need handouts to stay poor; they need jobs and someone to give them an opportunity.

 The bottom line is to get and stay involved, however you can, in activities that will ultimately raise the economies of developing countries, lift the rural population out of extreme poverty, end practices by outside organization that are contrary to the needs of the people and usher them into the twenty-first century. Africa and the developing world have a promising and bright future, but it will take all of us to foster the changes that are needed. It is possible, and you can make a difference. Many people will say, “Let George do it.”

Today, You Are George. What can you do? What will you do?

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, ‘Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled’; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so, faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, ‘Thou hast faith, and I have works’: show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works.”                                                  – James 2:15-20, KJV Bible

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The book: Saving Africa from Lies that Kill: How Myths about the Environment and Overpopulation are Destroying Third World Countries is available in print and eBook online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books a Million and in bookstores. If you like the book, please leave a review online at Amazon.com or other outlet.

Award-Winning Finalist in the Social Change category of the 2019 International Book Awards

Read the first chapter free through Bookfunnel at www.bit.ly/savingafricachapter1