Radical Noesis - Thinking outside the box

The assumed causation in all of these links between global warming and poverty are one way - global warming will increase poverty ... or undermine efforts to eradicate it. However, there is another process at work here. Namely that poverty may accelerate global warming. This happens in several ways.

The exploitation of resources and massive waste and pollution of industrialization dramatically undermined not just the environment, but the climate. That exploitation by wealthy nations left others in a deep hole and then deep debt. On one hand this has forced many nations to open their borders to the ravages (economic and environmental) of transnational corporations. Now, as the process of exploitation continues, those "left behind" have few options in survival, and nations lack resources to address the sources of climatic destruction. People engage in short term, destructive practices simply to survive.

A glaring example of this is the deforestation of Malawi. Poverty stricken people are chopping down the masuku forests at a rate 200 square miles of forests annually. This changes the ecology of Malawi, and leads to increased desertification. However, those cutting and selling firewood have little choice if they want to feed their families. "Two-thirds of the nation's 12 million people earn less than a dollar a day, according to the United Nations Human Development report. Nine-tenths of those two-thirds live in rural areas where both jobs and the odds of escaping poverty are nonexistent." For many of these people, firewood is their only income.

While such destruction disrupts the land and contributes to the larger problem of global warming, it also increases the destruction caused by global warming. The devastation also increases the risk to the population. The poverty itself undermines alternatives, and the "left behind" simply struggle to survive.

My point here is not that poverty is the cause of global warming, but that various process are intertwined and interacting. Those processes are essentially colonialism and globalized capitalism which places millions at the margins of a dollar economy; the destruction of the environment by those capitalizing on exploitation, and by those attempting to survive; global warming's climatic changes shrinking resources necessary to survival hits those with the fewest resources first; and increased costs of addressing global warming in the nations promoting the exploitation removes economic resources to even attempt to address poverty.

All too frequently, news is sound bites. Read the headlines and the articles, and causation seems clear - but also "clean." The reality is not so clean, and the usual presentation can mask the roles played by all. People who are living on the margins are going to be most dramatically impacted by global warming. Their place on the margins leads to desperate situations where they will engage in environmentally destructive practices simply to survive. For most of the world's poor, this is a situation that has been engineered by the wealthy nations and corporations. Therefore, it is in the interest of the big exploiters to address the poverty and desperation they have created, as well as addressing their own contribution to the destruction of the planet.

Global warming is a global issue. Poverty is a global issue. It is far past time that we be holistic rather than nationalistic. We are all connected - all the peoples, all the ecologies, and all the air we breathe. If we have chosen to ignore this before, it is necessary to acknowledge now for the survival of all of our relations.