{"id":442695,"date":"2026-05-05T09:58:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T16:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=442695"},"modified":"2026-05-05T09:58:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T16:58:27","slug":"what-about-earths-threatened-and-endangered-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=442695","title":{"rendered":"What about Earth\u2019s Threatened and Endangered PEOPLE?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We just had our 57th Earth Day, and our planet\u2019s poorest people were ignored yet again  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul Driessen<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another Earth Day has come and gone \u2013 number 57, like Heinz steak sauce. Once again, the media, activists and international agencies fed us pablum, exaggeration and alarmism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our public lands, the Endangered Species Act, biodiversity and environmental justice are under threat, they raged. Oceans are filling with plastic waste<\/a>. Big polluting corporations are getting away with \u201cclimate homicide\u201d and \u201cplanetary ecocide.\u201d The Arctic is melting, and polar bear cubs are drowning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United Nations took a short break from bashing Israel over \u201cPalestinian genocide<\/a>\u201d and western nations for the \u201cgravest crime<\/a>\u201d ever committed against humanity (trans-Atlantic slavery), to proclaim April 22 \u201cInternational Mother Earth Day\u201d and call for an end to \u201ccrimes\u201d that \u201cdisrupt biodiversity.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Activists held the \u201cfirst multilateral conference\u201d on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels. Their \u201cOur Power, Our Planet\u201d theme says further progress will require that communities and individuals pressure governments to accelerate the \u201cclean\u201d energy transition from \u201cdirty\u201d fossil fuels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a> those problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, greens have grown in domestic<\/a> and foreign<\/a> financing, power<\/a> and influence, and the ability to conduct ideological campaigns and lawfare<\/a> on issues of irrelevance<\/em> to the vast majority of Americans, let alone families in the most energy-deprived, destitute, diseased and malnourished nations on our planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/em> \u2026 or even about people in their own<\/em> developed countries who bear the brunt<\/a> of climate-centric, anti-growth<\/a>, net-zero, de-industrialization<\/a>, lower-living-standards policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s as if people don\u2019t exist, and don\u2019t belong, on our planet. The human herd must be culled<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the developed world, most climate-focused countries and states<\/a> have the most pseudo-clean energy mandates and subsidies \u2026 the highest electricity prices \u2026 the highest prices for goods and services. They\u2019re destroying entire industries, leaving thousands unemployed. They have the technologies to utilize their abundant carbon and nuclear energy, but ruling elites don\u2019t want citizens to enjoy jobs and living standards based on that energy. Each year thousands die needlessly<\/a> during frigid winters and summer heatwaves because families cannot afford or obtain proper heating and air conditioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cclimate crisis\u201d is s Hollywood special effects disaster movie<\/a>. The foundation for any \u201cclean\u201d energy transition is imaginary. Utopian energy is simply not<\/em> clean, green, renewable or sustainable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When wind turbines, solar panels, transformers, transmission lines and backup batteries or power plants are included, wind and solar energy<\/a> require dozens of times more raw materials<\/em> (and thus mining and pollution<\/a>) and hundreds of times more land<\/em> than just building a few nuclear or combined-cycle gas plants close to where electricity is needed \u2013 and forgetting about<\/a> any pseudo-renewable systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For families in poor nations, the price tag is infinitely higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worldwide, 730 million people still have no access<\/em> to electricity<\/a>. 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<\/a> here and there. The situation in much of rural Asia and Latin America is little better. Ditto for vehicles and gasoline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is entirely predictable. Almost no wage-earning jobs or mechanized farming, but abundant backbreaking work for parents and children in fields \u2013 and plenty of malnutrition, disease and death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over half the world\u2019s people (more than four billion<\/a>) still subsist on $10 a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 260 million suffer from critical food insecurity and malnutrition<\/a>, and 35 million children are acutely malnourished, including 10 million with childhood wasting disease<\/a> \u2013 leaving them with weak immune systems and vulnerable to developmental delays, disease and death<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malaria still infects<\/a> 280,000,000 people annually and kills 610,000. Indoor air pollution<\/a> from wood, dung, coal and kerosene cooking and heating fires kills nearly 3,000,000 people globally every year. Up to 3.5 million \u2013 mostly children \u2013 die annually due to inadequate safe water<\/a>, sanitation and hygiene. Diseases modern western societies never even hear about<\/a> sicken, disable or kill still more millions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A major reason is rampant corruption<\/em>. The World Bank<\/a> 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\u2019 foreign bank accounts. And yet the WB\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Far worse, these banks, US and European foundations, and climate, agricultural and other activist groups work tirelessly to prevent<\/em> 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 \u2013 almost never for coal or gas power plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same institutions \u2013 along with UN and other government agencies \u2013 oppose pesticides for eradicating locusts<\/a> and malarial mosquitoes<\/a>. They wage campaigns against biotech corn, soybeans, canola, and even hybrid seeds and life-saving Golden Rice<\/a>. They pressure African governments to ban non-organic fertilizers and crop-saving pesticides<\/a> that have been approved as safe in wealthy countries. Many even oppose tractors and other mechanized equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To them, the only acceptable farming method is \u201cagro-ecology\u201d \u2013 la Via Campesina<\/a>: the Peasant Way \u2013 aka, \u201ctraditional,\u201d \u201corganic,\u201d backbreaking subsistence farming<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These global zealots want power over<\/em> poor countries \u2013 not power for<\/em> the countries\u2019 destitute and desperate people. Their morally depraved policies and practices bring death to millions every year.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developing countries should avoid doing what rich nations are doing now that they are rich<\/em>. Instead, they should do what rich nations did to become rich<\/em><\/a>. 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 \u2026 and taxes to pay for more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They must chart their own destiny \u2013 and take their rightful places among Earth\u2019s healthy and prosperous people. Decent, moral Westerners must help them end the corruption and make this happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org<\/a>) and author of books<\/a>, reports and articles<\/a> on energy, environmental, climate and human rights issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We just had our 57th Earth Day, and our planet\u2019s poorest people were ignored yet again <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":442698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691838111,691823007,691842793,691842795,691824179,691842794,691829557],"class_list":{"0":"post-442695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-crisis-5","9":"tag-eco-activists","10":"tag-first-earth-day-1970","11":"tag-food-insecurity-and-malnutrition","12":"tag-united-nations-un","13":"tag-utopian-energy","14":"tag-who-world-health-organisation","16":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0AQOJje7XIa4meH1_0ppAcpBPhqNja28f5TWnodAuraeXnPWV5SaRgcphO9-pbFQFOiHWZEruoJ1bkz6AHuwMjWVgymbBuwZI9OKnTvuaVcYXzhTHbmX5RJXpi4MlEPOz.png?fit=810%2C1440&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1Raf","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":336448,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=336448","url_meta":{"origin":442695,"position":0},"title":"\u2018You\u2019re Utterly Ignorant\u2019: Ted Cruz Lights Up Climate Protesters Interrupting His Speech","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"07\/14\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Republican Texas Sen. 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