Does Helping the Planet Hurt the Poor?

[Dharma Bum]

Essays from a couple of my favorite authors, Peter Singer and Bjorn Lombard:

No (Peter): http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703779704576074333552233782.html?m od=WSJ_article_RecentColumns_TheSaturdayEssay

Yes (Bjorn): http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703779704576074360837994874.html

Addressing questions like: [T]his concern for the poor appears to be in tension with the need to protect our environment. Is there any point in saving the lives of people who will continue to have more children than they can feed? Don't rising populations in developing countries increase the pressure on forests and other ecosystems? Then there is climate change. How would the world cope if everyone were to become affluent and match our per capita rate of greenhouse gas emissions?

[kib]

Bjorn Lomborg is one of those people who always starts out well and at some point drops the ball with his contention that "the environment will just have to wait, other things come first", coupled with some assumptions about environmentalism that he's apparently pulled directly from ... er ... thin air. Which is very humanitarian of him, but also disturbingly short sighted, as if the environmental infrastructure were some sort of entertainment theme park like a zoo.

A great example, he contends that organic farming is actually detrimental to the environment:our growing passion for organic farming and antipathy to genetically modified crops inevitably leads us to accept decreased agricultural yields. An obvious consequence is that we end up converting more wilderness to agricultural use. Rubbish. Organic farming does not lead to decreased yields, it leads to sustainable yields that are often better per acre, especially if the farm is small. And ideally it winds up converting LESS wilderness, because the "farm" remains the property to some extent of mother nature.

Singer's most ironic and blackly amusing quote:

We should help today's global poor, but not at the expense of tomorrow's global poor.