The Bourgeois' Global Warming Agenda

Bjorn Lamborg “How Green Energy Policies Hurt the Poor,” The Spectator (UK)
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9176251/let-them-eat-carbon-credits/

I initially found an except of Lomborg's piece in the Wall Street Journal's "notable and quotable" section, but was later able to find the full piece online. The language of the two paragraph excerpt from the WSJ aims at the intentions of the West to provide renewable energy options (primarily solar and wind) to fuel the rest of the world (South America, Africa, South-East Asia) in their economies' attempt to lift themselves from poverty. Understanding that pollution is terrible for the well-being of the human race and doing nothing about it is terrible, but using non-renewable fossil fuels for economic growth has shown itself time and time again as the answer for establishing a middle class and lifting hundreds of millions from poverty -- which Lamborg asserts is essential to achieving higher standards of living and well-being. The use of fossil fuels powered the entire West and helped make them the economic powerhouses of the world for much of the 20th century. Lomborg even sarcastically claims that "Africa is the renewable utopia, getting 50 per cent of its energy from renewables -- though nobody wants to emulate it." Their energy sustainability only powers what we think of as Third-World. "In 1971, China derived 40 per cent of its energy from renewables." Despite that great energy efficiency, most African nations remain in poverty and China's growth came only after increasing their use of fossil fuels to build and populate the cities that became the producers for the world's goods. In China, fossil fuels have helped lift about 680 million people from poverty. Because of their poverty much of the underdeveloped world resorts to renewable energy sources such as wood for heating, which increases indoor pollutants and lowers life expectancy."In the West, we take our supply of electricity for granted," Lomborg writes."After a century, we’ve forgotten that plentiful, affordable and dependable energy is the lifeblood of modern civilisation and prosperity." Have we forgotten, or are we advantageously using our leverage? The International Relations textbook, in talking about Marxism, labeled a North-South divide. In effect, it attempts to say that the class struggle is no longer as pressing between demographics within developed western nation states as it is between established western nation states and emerging markets. In Marxist theory, it is not a stretch to say that the West, acting as the Bourgeois, is attempting to prevent emerging markets from attaining quickened economic growth (and real capitalism, which is a step necessary for the communist revolution to occur) by attempting to limit their use of fossil fuels to power their economy. In line with what I believe would be Marx’s explanation, the West would lose power if the emerging economies outpaced them over the next century (capitalism is a zero-sum game), but in order to keep hold of their Bourgeois-style leverage over the world (a.k.a. the proletariat), they must shroud their intentions in global environmental goodwill. -Mitchell Wood Professor, I was checking to make sure that my name was in all of them, and I have no idea what happened here. "   " showed up all over the text. I removed them but the format was changed.