Climate change policies hurt the poor

By Tom Quiner

Bjorn Lomborg is an interesting guy.

He runs a think tank that focuses on an unusual subject: welfare economics. They utilize a little used device when it comes to discussing so-called climate change: critical thinking.
Mr. Lomborg DOES believe the earth is warming, but does not believe in doomsday scenarios espoused by global warming theologians. In fact, Bjorn Lomborg believes that there are actually some benefits to global warming, such as longer growing seasons.
Most importantly, his think tank analyzes the consequences of radical green energy proposals and how they impact the poor. The Wall Street Journal ran this excerpt from an article Lomborg penned which appeared in the U.K.’s Spectator, titled, “How Green Policies Hurt the Poor:”

“Africa is the renewable utopia, getting 50 per cent of its energy from renewables—though nobody wants to emulate it. In 1971, China derived 40 per cent of its energy from renewables. Since then, it has powered its incredible growth almost exclusively on heavily polluting coal, lifting a historic 680 million people out of poverty. Today, China gets a trifling 0.23 per cent of its energy from unreliable wind and solar.
Yet most Westerners still want to focus on putting up more inefficient solar panels in the developing world. But this infatuation inflicts a real cost. A recent analysis from the Centre for Global Development shows that $10 billion invested in such renewables would help lift 20 million people in Africa out of poverty. It sounds impressive, until you learn that if this sum was spent on gas electrification it would lift 90 million people out of poverty. So in choosing to spend that $10 billion on renewables, we deliberately end up choosing to leave more than 70 million people in darkness and poverty.”

To paraphrase: if you care about the poor, go carbon.
If you care about the theology of climate change, go green.