OPINION | Martin_ASFL argues with unemployed S.Africans caught in cycle of poverty, it should be evident climate change is not high on many people's priority lists. For environmental conservation to be a priority, poverty needs to be eradicated, he writes.
Climate change advocacy and the push toward green energy came about and are dominant in the West for a good reason, argues the writer.South Africans and more caught in an inescapable cycle of poverty, it should be evident that climate change is not high on many people's priority lists. For environmental conservation to be a priority, poverty needs to be eradicated, he writes.
Of course, we should want environmental conservation to be a high priority for most South Africans. But advocacy, virtue signalling, and guilt-tripping will not achieve sustainable conservation. The only way to achieve this noble goal is to finally solve the poverty crisis, which is easier done than said.Getting government out of the way of economic progress – in other words, deregulation and liberalisation – would, and does, significantly reduce poverty.
The most important feature, in my view, has been that the poorest 10% of people in the free enterprise states of the world have incomes between eight and ten times higher than the poorest 10% in the states with more economically interventionist governments. Once the electricity crisis has ended and a sustainable flow of power has been ensured – and, with any luck, other market reforms away from central planning towards decentralised competition – the economy could begin to recover, with additional economic infrastructure being built upon a solid foundation. Only once that has happened can we honestly begin to consider how to phase out the sustainable sources of power, coal and nuclear, in favour of renewable ones.