Richard Worthington’s reply to my report on electricity (“A dirty old soul”, August 27) has the hallmarks of aggressive ideological writing typical of militant environmentalists.
South Africa’s worst problem is poverty, not damage to the environment by coal mined and burned in power stations — at both stages according to modern best practice.
Eradicating poverty itself improves the environment. Poor people who burn coal in cheap stoves are a source of pollution; as people move up the income ladder, they are able to use electricity for cooking and heating.
Eskom’s pollution-control measures are vastly more efficient than the coal stoves of the poor.
My article outlines Eskom’s efforts to bring in more hydroelectric power, from Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo and by building more pumped storage facilities. The corporation is also investigating wind power and developing an energy-saving programme, as Worthington recommends.
It is true that South Africa has an electricity-intensive economy, but forcing households to install solar water heaters will not significantly change this. South Africa is a leading mining economy, especially in deep-level hard-rock mining, and this is an electricity-intensive activity.
As South Africa’s industry diversifies, the proportional contribution of mining is likely to diminish.
The environmental movement has done invaluable work in raising consciousness about our duties to other species and the environment. But many greens can be accused of an elitist, pseudo-evangelical tendency.
Six billion people live on Earth. Their interests crucially include the provision of cheap electricity. It is possible to do this without causing excessive environmental damage.
But the line must be drawn reasonably, not neurotically. China should be left to its hydroelectric scheme on the Yangste river (with proper provision for farmers obliged to relocate). And South Africa should be left to mine coal to the extent necessary, subject to using best modern practice.
I urge Worthington to read Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist, which is a plea for less emotion, more attention to facts and a greater focus on cost-effectiveness in the interests of the world’s millions of economically deprived.