June 30th was Thomas Sowell’s 92nd birthday.
“Those who are primarily concerned about the well-being of the poor are likely to discover over time that much of the agenda of the Left does not really do much good for the poor, and some of that agenda—environmental extremism, for example—actually makes the poor worse off.”—Thomas Sowell
We in developing countries dread the Left’s extreme environmentalism, which is already wreaking havoc on federal government-approved drilling projects across around the world.
Thomas Golz says
Yes, first world cost-benefit analysis does not apply well to all the world. In the west, at least until the Biden Administration, some of us maybe be paycheck to paycheck, but some still have disposable income. We may be able to survive the costs of greening America. For folks in mostly subsistence economies, soaring costs will erode an already miserable standard of living. Expect dreadful shortages, unrest, tyrannical gov’t responses and refugee/migrant increases.
I also enjoyed your recent Townhall article on mosquitoes and DDT, which I think demonstrates the poor fit of first world cost benefit analysis. In the US, cotton growers (the big US DDT users) could afford the switch to organophosphates, though the switch killed 8 or more farmers/year for a few years. (USDA had a big safety education push, I recall called Project Safeguard). But a lot of countries “me too’d” the US cancellation of DDT,and the substitute products, while effective, were dermally toxic. One drop of parathion could be fatal.
No one noticed the fine print in the (1970?) DDT cancellation- some public health uses were retained. I know it was used into the early 1980’s as a tracking powder for rabid bat infestations- I was the first stop in the application?