re: #9 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus

Here is Ajay Banga, the current (14th) President of the World Bank, in that video:

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At the start of his verbiage was this:

Ok, so dropping in some flowery words that sound like wisdom.

But the World Bank has been around longer than most international organizations, and in the help they have given (though some will argue that its more about dominion than help) the bottom line is increasing per capita energy use to make struggling economies around the world stronger.

The very nature of the World Bank’s goals is to increase carbon emissions.

Now that the World Bank acknowledges that climate change needs to be prioritized, are they going to tell the struggling masses that those people must cut their emissions???

So, I haven’t watched his video, but in general, he’s right. When you barely have a single light bulb at night, improving your living conditions will necessarily involve more electricity, for the devices everyone now has (India has 650 million smart phone users now). A vacuum cleaner takes more electricity than sweeping and dusting. A washing machine takes more electricity than handwashing everything, etc, etc.

But more non-wasted energy is not inconsistent with lower emissions. We just need to build renewable and nuclear energy.

And be smarter about what’s really needed.
For refrigerators, there are some very interesting non-electricity using designs, as long as you can get ice or even just water from somewhere else. Which may be good ideas to get the global poor the benefits of refrigeration without the extra costs. Some of these are _very_ old techniques that have been forgotten by most in the developed world.
Don’t go for dryers if you live in places dry enough. No one I knew had a dryer when I lived in the middle east as a kid.

Also, _CHARGE_ people for electricity. In plenty of places, governments turn a blind eye to people tapping from the power grid. If governments want to have a pricing model that gives poorer households a certain amount of electricity free or cheap, go for it, but it’s more expensive for the utilities if people take their electricity for free.