If we want to improve the environment in poor countries we have to supply them with cheap energy, with cheap energy comes prosperity, with prosperity comes schooling and education, then with education will come improvements and a reduction in populations (prosperity and education go hand in hand with a reduction in birthrate) plus the knowledge of how important our environment is.
Quote by Ottmar Edenhoffer, high level UN-IPCC official: "We redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy...Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization...One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore."
Man can do a lot of damage to the earth. But is this damage lasting? There is no place where man has damaged the earth beyond a point where there can never be restored. Take Bikini for example. If there was one place where man would have done lasting damage, that would be the place, because of all the a-bomb testing. Both flora and fauna are recovering.
So this myth that wealth and environmental degradation are somehow related is foolish at best. There are examples where man with very little means has enhanced the environment. On the plains of the Dakotas, for example, the homestead act provided trees to penniless homesteaders. Men planted those trees and now that land is some of the most productive farmland in the world. Every conservation program in any agriculture school will give you this and other examples.
This poverty vs. destruction of the earth is nonsense and is just a way of justifying taking a person's money and giving it to someone who doesn't know how to handle it. Of course the ones taking the money are going to take their 'fair share' before they spread it around. It is a scam.
There was a vibrant culture in a certain part of the world. They had a very 'rich' life. The community had surplus wealth and time to devote to culture and religion.
Unfortunately they cut down all their trees and their soil eroded and then the climate changed for the worse [no causal connection intended on the climate in this instance] So, with their degraded environment from loss of species, lack of fertile soil and reduced rainfall they declined into poverty. In fact they all pretty much starved to death. Easter Island is the place.
That is just one example, desertification in Sub Saharan Africa is another. The Ancient Greeks stuffed up their place too by cutting down too many trees. People do it all the time because they think us little humans can't possibly impact on the big environment. They find out about their mistake when its too late.
In most of the world, the bulk of the population are subsistence farmers, herdsmen, or the like. They rely for their base survival on getting certain things from the natural world--water to drink, and to water their crops and/or livestock. Wild foods like fish to supplement their diets. Medicinal herbs to treat illness. Grass for their livestock. And so on.
If something goes wrong with the environment, these people will be less able or unable to grow crops, keep their livestock alive, and so on. And, as a carry-on effect, anyone who was selling goods or services to these farmers will have lost their customers. Anyone who was buying their surplus won't have anything to buy. And so on.
Look up the concept of "ecosystem services" for more information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_...
