Lithachne

 
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  • in reply to: Modern Myths that Destroy Humanity #1286
    Lithachne
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    Mr. Pandurangi, I am disappointed. I have read your spate of recent posts with interest and, in general, agreement. I’ve also enjoyed your words with the guys at the Extraenvironmentalist. But this time your arrow has flown clear of your target.
    I am reminded of the scene in Good Will Hunting, when Sean tells Will that he’s just a kid and has no first-hand experience with what he’s talking about, never smelled that Sistine Chapel…
    You see, I lived in a small village in northern sub-Saharan west Africa for two years, among subsistence farmers. And they *don’t* have clean water. And they *can’t* grow enough food. And it’s *not* big US agribusiness that makes them poor. And they *want* economic opportunities beyond their moribund millet fields–they would happily work in a sweat shop for $1 a day because that would be $1 that they wouldn’t get otherwise. They want indoor plumbing, or at least a toilet. They want refrigeration, lights that don’t produce smoke. They want a floor instead of dirt, roofs made out of at least tin. Most of all, they want their kids not to die of vaccine preventable disease, or at least, they don’t want their kids to die of something as easy to cure as diarrhea. These families want their kids to be able to go to school, but they still need to be able to plant and harvest the fields. How dare you speak for them?! How dare you suggest how wonderful their lives are?!
    If you admire their situation so much, any one of them would be delighted to switch places with you. I can get you some names and addresses–let’s make it happen.
    Our products’ cheapness is depressing the prices these subsistence farmers can get for their crops on the international market, yet our biofuels program is driving up prices of food (complaints about which have appeared on this page). So which is it? Do we want low food costs for poor people, or do we want poor people to be able to sell the food they grow for more money?
    Sachs has never lived in an African village, but at least he’s fracking been to Africa, and he’s been conducting *results-based, outcome-driven* projects that actually work to lift people out of poverty. You denigrate academics, but your essay is worse than any moldy academic treatise, because you don’t even deign to consider any data or experience, you just regurgitate and extend the unfounded opinion of someone with whom you already agree. What shall we call your type of ivory tower?

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