Life or Death

Last week we began scrutinizing the disastrous effects of net zero policies. We learned how net zero is already harming the United States and Europe. Expensive and unreliable wind and solar power have driven up energy prices, inflicting serious pain upon families and businesses.

Today I’d like to examine the impact of net zero policies upon the billions of people who live in the developing world. Remember, 760 million human beings have absolutely no access to electricity. Another 3 billion people have only minimal electricity. The lives of these people are extremely difficult. Lacking energy, they are trapped in perpetual poverty. They’re reduced to subsistence farming, barely able to grow enough crops to feed their families.

In the United States we enjoy the miracle of modern farming. The chart below shows how US corn yields have soared over the past century. How has this miracle occurred? How can America’s farmers – who comprise less than 2% of our population – feed not just our entire nation but much of the world as well? This feat has been accomplished thanks to the blessing of fossil fuels. Massive tractors and combines powered by diesel fuel allow farmers to be unbelievably productive. An American farmer using a modern combine can reap and thresh more wheat than 1,000 farmers working manually. Additionally, modern irrigation systems – again powered by diesel pumps – dramatically raise crop yields, particularly in semi-arid regions that would not otherwise be amenable to farming.

Agricultural production has also been greatly boosted by nitrogen-based fertilizers.  My grandparents farmed the rich, black soil of central Illinois. In 1950, they were overjoyed if they could harvest 40 or 50 bushels of corn per acre. Yet American farms now produce upwards of 180 bushels per acre! It would be utterly impossible produce 180 bushels of corn per acre without fertilizer; there simply aren’t enough nutrients in the soil. 

Specifically, the amount of nitrogen is usually the limiting factor in crop growth. In times past, farmers of course used manure as fertilizer, but manure is not nearly as effective as synthetic fertilizer.  A huge breakthrough came in 1910, when two German chemists, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch, developed a process to produce large scale fertilizer.  The Haber-Bosch process combines nitrogen and hydrogen gases at high temperature and pressure to produce ammonia (NH3).  Ammonia is the key component in fertilizer, as it provides the nitrogen that crops need. 

The source of both the hydrogen and the heat necessary for the Haber-Bosch process is natural gas.  This amazing fossil fuel is therefore essential for producing nitrogen-based fertilizers, which have played a key role in raising worldwide crop yields. Fertilizer increases yields by 30%, meaning that billions of people around the world are alive and well-nourished thanks to fertilizers produced by fossil fuels. 

Worldwide crop yields continue to reach unprecedented levels. We should all celebrate this wonderful news! Humanity now has a greater ability to feed itself than any other time in history. Unfortunately, the political left just can’t stand success.  Driven by climate change hysteria, organizations such as the United Nations are pressuring developing countries to abandon the use of fossil fuels.

Net zero policies have the basic effect of making energy much more expensive. It would be difficult to overstate the danger that the net zero movement poses to the welfare of humanity, especially those living in poor nations. We don’t have to guess what the outcome of net zero will be; the drama is playing out before our very eyes.

According to the United Nations World Food Program, the planet is now facing a worldwide hunger crisis. The number of people facing acute food insecurity has skyrocketed to 345 million, up from 135 million in 2019.  

The roots of this crisis are manifold.  One culprit is the COVID lockdowns, which have had the very predictable effect of making billions of poor people a great deal poorer, while failing to control the spread of the virus.  War has always been a major factor in societal breakdown and subsequent famine.  The conflict in Ukraine has certainly made a contribution to the current state of affairs, especially since Ukraine is a significant source of the world’s wheat. But net zero policies have made a huge contribution to the world’s hunger crisis. Unsurprisingly, this story gets no attention from the liberal media.

The island nation of Sri Lanka sits just off the coast of India and is home to about 22 million people.   According to author Michael Shellenberger, “After World War II, Sri Lanka like many poor nations subsidized farmers to transition from…manure to chemical fertilizers. Rice yields rose quickly and the nation overcame chronic food shortages. As yields rose, young people were able to get jobs in cities. Salaries increased so much that Sri Lanka became a middle-income nation.”

Yet over the last several years, global elites from the United Nations and the World Bank have pressured Sri Lanka to eliminate fossil fuels and embrace renewables. The Sri Lankan President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, dutifully pledged to achieve net zero by 2050. The government foolishly sought to close coal-fired power plants. Additionally, Western climate activists pushed so-called “organic” farming policies upon Sri Lanka. Organic farming eschews the wonders of fossil fuel-based mechanization, irrigation, and fertilizer use. In return for these calamitous policies, the Sri Lankan government was rewarded with a near-perfect ESG score of 98. (ESG is a misguided measure of environmental friendliness invented by climate alarmists.)

In April 2021, President Rajapaksa prohibited nitrogen-based fertilizer imports. The ban was an unmitigated disaster.  The production of rice plummeted by 20%, causing prices to skyrocket.  Facing the prospect of widespread famine, the government was forced to import $450 million of grain.  The ban also caused a precipitous decline in tea, one of Sri Lanka’s major exports.  Like many other nations, Sri Lanka was badly hurt by the worldwide spike in oil prices. In June, inflation exceeded 50%. Facing crippling food and fuel prices, Sri Lankans became desperate. Lacking fuel for heating and cooking, people scoured the countryside for firewood, thus exacerbating the problem of deforestation.

Unsurprisingly, the island eventually descended into chaos and violence. Scores of people died as massive protests swept the country. In early July, the President fled the country and the government collapsed. The story of Sri Lanka ought to be a cautionary tale for the world: the pursuit of net zero policies will result in poverty, famine, and ultimately the unravelling of civil society. But hey, at least they had a great ESG score.

Let’s complete our net zero evaluation by considering the truly poorest parts of the world, such as sub-Saharan Africa. These people have yet to experience the blessings of affordable energy. They are subsistence farmers, whose food supply is constantly under threat. Living in small, squalid hovels, they heat their shelters and cook their meals over indoor fires fueled by wood or dung. These fires fill their meager dwellings with smoke. Inhaling this smoke is the rough equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes per day, causing sickness and millions of premature deaths. Hours each day are spent collecting firewood and water.

Impoverished people desperately need the kind of accessible energy that only comes from fossil fuels. Modern mechanized farming, irrigation and fertilizer would allow them to enjoy drastically higher crop yields, thereby providing communities with far more abundant, inexpensive and high-quality food. Cheap electricity would allow them to heat their homes and cook their food without wasting hours each day collecting firewood. It would also end the scourge of indoor air pollution. Rather than having exhausted women and children walk miles each day to acquire water, powered wells and pumps would do the job. Irrigation systems would preserve their crops during dry seasons.

The widespread use of fossil fuels has allowed the United States and Europe to achieve amazing wealth and flourishing. Yet the political left is now doing all it can to prevent poor nations from following this same path to prosperity. This climate imperialism is one of the astounding tragedies of the modern world. Net zero and ESG policies will prevent billions of people from receiving the life-giving benefits of energy. Proponents of net zero are condemning literally billions of human beings to grinding poverty; millions of these people will perish as the result. The brutal truth is that the net zero/ESG movements are grossly immoral.

The lives of countless human beings hang in the balance. It would be no exaggeration to say this: the reversal of net zero policies would do more to benefit humanity than all other Christian charity combined. At minimum, Christians ought to cast our ballots against the Democratic politicians driving the net zero/ESG movements. Have the courage to speak out against the destructive net zero policies which inordinately harm the poorest among us. And remember, “Whatever you did for the least of these, you did it for me.”