Prosperity and energy go hand in hand.   Energy also means comfort.   It means a high standard of living.   It means health and safety.

And this is where I disagree most with groups like Greenpeace and others who see the “developing” world as a place where people should be encouraged to live modest lives, with solar power just giving enough electricity to power vaccine fridges and where small cooking boxes sit in mud huts… sorry “Adobe Earth Friendly Structures.”   To me, I cannot help but ask who we are to deny the world the comforts and benefits of energy.   To deny whole regions the comfort of air conditioning and heat and the knowledge and communications of the internet or the broad horizons of motorized travel.

And no image could display that more than this one.   Because light pollution aside, it shows something of how the world is in terms of energy:

 (Click to enlarge)

 

The US and Western Europe shine brightly.  Latin America less so, and Japan looks bright against it’s neighbors.   Many of the Pacific Islands and areas of South Asia lack lighting except for a few dots here and there.   These are nations which struggle with poverty.   Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos lack lighting as does much of the Philippians Africa sees some light in the south and the very north, but the poorest areas of central Africa live up to the name “The Dark Continent.”  In China, lighting is concentrated in the East and along the coast; it is a powerful metaphor of a country which is becoming rich while many in the rural areas of China still live in poverty.  In India too, light shines bright, but upon closer inspection there remain dark areas; it is another nation where development has not reached all citizens.

But few regions could be more dramatic than North Korea, where only a small amount of light shines in the capital, setting it in stark contrast to South Korea.   The north has been closed to the world and the people have suffered a brutal and isolated regime for decades.

When I see these images the thing I think is not that we need to make those in Africa and Southeast Asia live by modest means and rationed energy.   Such countries deserve the benefits of modern life as much as any other nation.   I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: WE NEED TERAWATTS!

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 29th, 2007 at 9:18 pm and is filed under Culture, Enviornment, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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