Affluence creates strange behavior in the human species. While people at the subsistence level struggle day to day to survive, our affluence leads us to self-loathing. We fret about our carbon footprint, with our heated pools, 12,000 sq ft homes and private jets (isn’t that right, Mr. Gore?). Meanwhile, our brothers and sisters in the undeveloped world must stay undeveloped so that we don’t overheat the planet while maintaining our astronomical standard of living.

Is it a surprise that the Third World might push back on that?

From Fiona Kobusingye, a columnist at Townhall.com:

Africa’s real climate crisis

Life in Africa is often nasty, impoverished and short. AIDS kills 2.2 million Africans every year according to WHO (World Health Organization) reports. Lung infections cause 1.4 million deaths, malaria 1 million more, intestinal diseases 700,000. Diseases that could be prevented with simple vaccines kill an additional 600,000 annually, while war, malnutrition and life in filthy slums send countless more parents and children to early graves.

And yet, day after day, Africans are told the biggest threat we face is – global warming.

…Africans are told climate change “threatens humanity more than HIV/AIDS.” More than 2.2 million dead Africans every year?

However, the real problem isn’t questionable or fake science, hysterical claims and worthless computer models that predict global warming disasters. It’s that they’re being used to justify telling Africans that we shouldn’t build coal or natural gas electrical power plants. It’s the almost total absence of electricity keeping us from creating jobs and becoming modern societies. It’s that these policies KILL.

The average African life span is lower than it was in the United States and Europe 100 years ago. But Africans are being told we shouldn’t develop, or have electricity or cars because, now that those countries are rich beyond anything Africans can imagine, they’re worried about global warming.

Al Gore and UN climate boss Yvo de Boer tell us the world needs to go on an energy diet. Well, I have news for them. Africans are already on an energy diet. We’re starving!

Al Gore uses more electricity in a week than 28 million Ugandans together use in a year. And those anti-electricity policies are keeping us impoverished.

H/T Cooler Heads Digest of the Competitive Enterprise Institute