# What about Earth’s Threatened and Endangered PEOPLE?

- Link: https://climatescience.press/?p=442695
- Published: 2026-05-05T09:58:25-07:00
- Author: uwe.roland.gross

![](https://i0.wp.com/climatescience.press/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/0AQOJje7XIa4meH1_0ppAcpBPhqNja28f5TWnodAuraeXnPWV5SaRgcphO9-
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=576%2C1024&ssl=1)

From [Watts Up With That?](https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/05/04/what-about-earths-threatened-and-endangered-people/)

**We just had our 57th Earth Day, and our planet’s poorest people were ignored yet
again  **

Paul Driessen

Another Earth Day has come and gone – number 57, like Heinz steak sauce. Once again,
the media, activists and international agencies fed us pablum, exaggeration and 
alarmism.

Our public lands, the Endangered Species Act, biodiversity and environmental justice
are under threat, they raged. Oceans are filling with [plastic waste](https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/5768859-theyve-nearly-given-up-on-climate-the-next-scam-will-be-plastics/).
Big polluting corporations are getting away with “climate homicide” and “planetary
ecocide.” The Arctic is melting, and polar bear cubs are drowning.

The United Nations took a short break from bashing Israel over “[Palestinian genocide](https://spencerguard.substack.com/p/israel-is-not-committing-genocide)”
and western nations for the “[gravest crime](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/premium/4527862/whats-really-behind-un-transatlantic-slavery-resolution/)”
ever committed against humanity (trans-Atlantic slavery), to proclaim April 22 “
International Mother Earth Day” and call for an end to “crimes” that “disrupt biodiversity.”

Activists held the “first multilateral conference” on Transitioning Away from Fossil
Fuels. Their “Our Power, Our Planet” theme says further progress will require that
communities and individuals pressure governments to accelerate the “clean” energy
transition from “dirty” fossil fuels.

Forgive my skepticism. But I was a college organizer for very first Earth Day (1970),
back when we had real, highly visible environmental problems: air pollution and 
toxic smog over cities, industrial water pollution that made it unsafe to swim, 
leaded gasoline, and more. We [largely solved](https://energybadboys.substack.com/p/americans-think-the-environment-is)
those problems.

Since then, greens have grown in [domestic](https://energysecurityfreedom.substack.com/p/who-is-paying-for-the-silencing-of)
and [foreign](https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2026/04/23/leftists_fake_tears_about_high_energy_prices_but_ignore_the_foreign-funded_lawfare_1178375.html)
financing, [power](https://gregwalcher.com/2026/04/15/where-meets-power/) and influence,
and the ability to conduct ideological [campaigns and lawfare](https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/12/07/supreme-court-should-not-let-climate-lawfare-set-us-energy-policy/)
on issues of _irrelevance_ to the vast majority of Americans, let alone families
in the most energy-deprived, destitute, diseased and malnourished nations on our
planet.

Any yet, for days leading up to Earth Day and afterward, virtually nothing was said
by the UN, WHO, eco-activists, media screed-meisters or I-care-deeply politicians
about these _people_ … or even about people in their _own_ developed countries who
[bear the brunt](https://www.wsj.com/opinion/albany-democrats-climate-mandates-new-york-kathy-hochul-36556546)
of climate-centric, [anti-growth](https://hotair.com/david-strom/2026/04/29/without-abundant-energy-our-lives-would-be-nasty-brutish-and-short-n3814383),
net-zero, [de-industrialization](https://www.cfact.org/2014/05/31/john-holdren-in-his-own-radical-words/),
lower-living-standards policies.

It’s as if people don’t exist, and don’t belong, on our planet. [The human herd must be culled](https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=3486).

In the developed world, most [climate-focused countries and states](https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/5676902-europe-is-waking-up-to-the-follies-of-green-energy/)
have the most pseudo-clean energy mandates and subsidies … the highest electricity
prices … the highest prices for goods and services. They’re destroying entire industries,
leaving thousands unemployed. They have the technologies to utilize their abundant
carbon and nuclear energy, but ruling elites don’t want citizens to enjoy jobs and
living standards based on that energy. Each year [thousands die needlessly](https://www.endfuelpoverty.org.uk/cold-homes-are-still-killing-people-in-fuel-poverty/)
during frigid winters and summer heatwaves because families cannot afford or obtain
proper heating and air conditioning.

The “climate crisis” is s [Hollywood special effects disaster movie](https://climateconference.heartland.org/).
The foundation for any “clean” energy transition is imaginary. Utopian energy is
simply _not_ clean, green, renewable or sustainable.

When wind turbines, solar panels, transformers, transmission lines and backup batteries
or power plants are included, [wind and solar energy](https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in-clean-energy-transitions/executive-summary)
require _dozens of times more raw materials_ (and thus [mining and pollution](https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/07/02/mining-the-planet-for-renewable-energy/))
and _hundreds of times more land_ than just building a few nuclear or combined-cycle
gas plants close to where electricity is needed – and [forgetting about](https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/hotlines/even-blue-states-are-abandoning-green-energy/)
any pseudo-renewable systems.

For families in poor nations, the price tag is infinitely higher.

Worldwide, 730 million people still have [_no access_ to electricity](https://www.iea.org/commentaries/access-to-electricity-stagnates-leaving-globally-730-million-in-the-dark).
Billions more have minimal, sporadic access. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 600 million 
have no electricity; hundreds of millions more have minimal, unpredictable electricity
from small [wind turbines and solar panels](https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/04/21/wind-and-solar-focus-threaten-americas-and-south-africas-economy/)
here and there. The situation in much of rural Asia and Latin America is little 
better. Ditto for vehicles and gasoline.

The result is entirely predictable. Almost no wage-earning jobs or mechanized farming,
but abundant backbreaking work for parents and children in fields – and plenty of
malnutrition, disease and death.

Over half the world’s people (more than [four billion](https://ourworldindata.org/poverty))
still subsist on $10 a day.

More than 260 million suffer from critical [food insecurity and malnutrition](https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/acute-food-insecurity-and-malnutrition-remain-alarmingly-high-crises-deepen-un-eu),
and 35 million children are acutely malnourished, including 10 million with childhood
[wasting disease](https://www.unicef.org/nutrition/child-wasting) – leaving them
with weak immune systems and vulnerable to developmental delays, disease and death

[Malaria still infects](https://www.who.int/teams/global-malaria-programme/reports/world-malaria-report-2025)
280,000,000 people annually and kills 610,000. [Indoor air pollution](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/household-air-pollution-and-health)
from wood, dung, coal and kerosene cooking and heating fires kills nearly 3,000,000
people globally every year. Up to 3.5 million – mostly children – die annually due
to [inadequate safe water](https://www.un.org/en/academic-impact/world-water-day-reminds-us-value-precious-resource),
sanitation and hygiene. Diseases modern western societies [never even hear about](https://ourworldindata.org/burden-of-disease)
sicken, disable or kill still more millions.

Do you think any of their grieving families gives a spotted owl hoot that your local
temperature climbed a degree since the Little Ice Age ended, or a polar bear cub
drowned halfway around the world?

A major reason is _rampant corruption_. The [World Bank](https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/493201582052636710)
found that at least 7.5% (and as much as 15% or more) of total assistance to the
most aid-dependent nations ends up in ruling elites’ foreign bank accounts. And 
yet the WB’s International Development Association received $94 billion for the 
2022-2025 period. Multilateral development bank financing to top humanitarian recipients
was $12 billion in 2020. Total worldwide Official Development Assistance reached
a record $161.2 billion in 2020. Do the math.

Far worse, these banks, US and European foundations, and climate, agricultural and
other activist groups work tirelessly to _prevent_ these countries from acquiring
or developing the electricity and other energy they need to emerge from squalor,
starvation and disease. For decades these virtue-signaling banks have provided loans
only for wind and solar projects – almost never for coal or gas power plants.

The result? Expensive, limited, unreliable electricity. No modern hospitals, schools,
water purification, factories or shops. Continued pollution from wood and dung fuels.
No jobs, improved living standards or reductions in killer diseases.

The same institutions – along with UN and other government agencies – oppose pesticides
for [eradicating locusts](https://www.creators.com/read/walter-williams/03/20/another-african-tragedy)
and [malarial mosquitoes](https://www.thecongressofracialequality.org/anti-malaria-campaign.html).
They wage campaigns against biotech corn, soybeans, canola, and even hybrid seeds
and [life-saving Golden Rice](http://allowgoldenricenow.org/wordpress/home/). They
pressure African governments to ban non-organic fertilizers and [crop-saving pesticides](https://www.science20.com/james_njoroge/while_coronavirus_talk_dominates_the_us_few_notice_25_million_africans_being_devastated_by_locusts-244921)
that have been approved as safe in wealthy countries. Many even oppose tractors 
and other mechanized equipment.

To them, the only acceptable farming method is “agro-ecology” – [la Via Campesina](https://www.masterresource.org/driessen-paul/%EF%BB%BFfinanciers-poverty-malnutrition-death-1/):
the Peasant Way – aka, “traditional,” “organic,” backbreaking _subsistence farming_.

This, corruption, wars and food-deprivation as a weapon of war is why we still have
malnutrition, starvation, disease and astronomical death tolls in African and other
impoverished countries.

These global zealots want power _over_ poor countries – not power _for_ the countries’
destitute and desperate people. Their morally depraved policies and practices bring
death to millions every year.  

Developing countries should avoid doing what rich nations are doing _now that they
are rich_. Instead, they should do [what rich nations did _to become rich_](https://energysecurityfreedom.substack.com/p/african-leaders-embracing-their-oil).
They should remember that wealthy industrialized countries did not have MDBs to 
help them; they created institutions to finance the power generation and factories
that created jobs, middle classes, health, prosperity, new industries … and taxes
to pay for more.

They must chart their own destiny – and take their rightful places among Earth’s
healthy and prosperous people. Decent, moral Westerners must help them end the corruption
and make this happen.

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow(
[www.CFACT.org](http://www.cfact.org/)) and author of [books](https://www.amazon.com/Eco-imperialism-Green-Power-Black-Death-ebook/dp/B006OTKVG4/ref=sr_1_1?crid=27N75HXCA04FA&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.0ZafkQrb9V02gUr-opeapxvdmt-FdUwFvoQuxTvmE0JFqyu8QX1Sd4CctIwspB7s.w1JzyUhDPLFGMa4WNrUmF3woFanbLlFM5D51coGQGhQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=driessen+eco-imperialism&qid=1776459260&sprefix=driessen+eco-imperialism%2Caps%2C135&sr=8-1),
reports and [articles](https://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen) on energy, 
environmental, climate and human rights issues.

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