[Village water source, Tanzania (Photo: Bob Metcalf)]

In the film, No Country for Old Men, the sheriff declares: “If it isn’t doom it’ll do until a proper doom comes along.” Such has been the role of ‘global warming’ during the last ‘nice’ decade. It has been ‘the doom’ for the chattering classes, who, meanwhile, have been doing quite well - er - ‘nicely’, thank you. It has been the ‘doom’ for those who have seen the salvation of the world’s poor through a green-tinted commentariat, one blithely arguing that it can all be achieved without nasty economic growth.

But the ‘nice’ decade is at an end, and “a proper doom” is rearing its beastly head at every level of politics, from the Crewe and Nantwich By-election [‘Crewe byelection marks end of New Labour, says Cameron’, The Guardian, May 23] to, far more importantly, the belated recognition that the only way to deliver people and countries out of poverty is “through rapid and sustained growth” [‘Choose growth or accept poverty for billions’, The Guardian, May 22]:

“The world will contain 4 billion people living in abject poverty by 2050 unless the poorest countries adopt policies to deliver rapid and sustained growth over the coming decades, a report backed by the World Bank and the British government said yesterday.

After a two-year investigation, a group of policymakers and economists published a blueprint designed to allow the least developed nations to emulate the 13 countries that have expanded at an average rate of at least 7% a year for 25 years or longer since the second world war.”

Professor Mike Spence, Chair of the Commission on Growth and Development, states bluntly:

“The Growth Report kills off once and for all the misguided notion that you can lift people out of poverty in the absence of growth.

It is impossible for poor countries to lift large populations out of poverty without growth. Equality of opportunity and a focus on individuals and families, gender inequalities and economic security, however, [are] critical to maintaining the support for growth-oriented policies.”

The right model is to emulate some thirteen countries that have achieved encouraging per capita rises in income since the 1950s and 60s, namely: Botswana, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Malta, Oman, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand.

“The Proper Doom”

In contrast, two billion people currently inhabit countries with stagnating, or even declining, incomes, a figure which the Report predicts could rise to 4 billion if these countries continue to suffer from low or negative growth. Again, in the words of Professor Spence:

“Growth requires leadership, persistence and engagement with the global economy. It also requires advanced economies to play their part as well - bringing an end to the current focus on energy subsidies and biofuels, and an end to the protectionist policies which limit developing world access to the global markets that are so central to growth.”

Just so. And this has to be achieved against a background of rising world energy costs, rising world food prices, world banking and credit crises, and the deeply worrying creation of yet more failed states where leadership will be at a premium.

Not ‘Nice’ At All

The cloud-cuckoo land of naive organic utopias, of protectionism, of the promotion of ‘the local’ over trade, of ‘global warming’ taxes, of imposed costs and caps, and of anti-development and anti-growth tropes can no longer be tolerated. They are not ‘nice’ at all.

A “proper doom” is imminent, and it will affect us all, but especially the poor. It is thus time to choose between virtual fears and fantasies - ‘the doom that’ll do’ - and “the proper doom” of a ‘not nice’, but bitterly real world.

The world urgently needs to be opened up again for growth, not further burdened with unnecessary costs and prohibitions. We need clean water for all, energy for all, and more efficient food production. The much-maligned Bjørn Lomborg has been correct all along.

Big Gordon Hits The Buffers

Moreover, if, somewhat parochially, Big Gordon is to escape the buffers into which he has crashed so ignominiously at Crewe Junction, he too had better think twice before overloading the UK train with too much burdensome ballast and too many troublesome tax trucks [see: ‘Retrogressive, Retrospective, and Wrong’, May 18].

The signals are clear: ‘global warming’ must be shunted into the old Crewe sidings to allow the Express Train of growth to bring goods and services to as many people as possible, as fast as possible.

“Let’s hope we are back on the high-speed track again soon, Big Gordon.”

“Poop! Poop!”

This Fat Controller is off for lunch in the buffet.

[See also:  ‘Cameron hails “end of New Labour”’, BBC Online Politics News, May 23]