Money is killing the developing world: the case for radical sustainability
Louie S
Fire, blood, and anguish. Many decades ago, Priestley conceptualized a variation of the anti-trinity, which, as of right now, accurately mirrors the debilitating realities of the status-quo. Whether it is the common occurrence of forest fires, scorching heat in the summer, or inescapable famine in the global south, nature is rightfully taking its revenge on humanity. Selfishness, self-preservation and unbridled greed is what continuously fuels our desire to prioritize economic growth, and it is one of the main engines of both global warming and economic inequality. Many critiques labour under the delusion that prioritizing environmental sustainability means abandoning economic growth altogether. Nevertheless, there are massive financial and political opportunities within protecting the environment: innovation, diplomacy, new industry and much more. This essay argues that developing countries should prioritize sustainability to pull themselves out of poverty and reverse global warming. If not, then the continuation of the status-quo could lead Priestley’s anti-trinity to materialize fully; to avoid it, humanity must take action. Why does prioritizing economic growth come at the expense of the environment? There are several reasons. The first, perhaps the most obvious, is resource extraction. In 2022, 12,000km 2 of the Peruvian Amazon was deforested – equivalent to eight London cities. The vast majority of mining and deforestation occurs in developing countries like China, India, Brazil, Nigeria and Indonesia. That is not a coincidence. Since the dawn of the western global order, the global north has suffered colonialism, where high-income countries destroyed the pillars of stability in less developed nations. Colonialism often involved the destruction of the host country’s political system and the installation of the slave trade, which created a profit-producing system for the west. Consequently, when colonizers exited, post-colonial states often experienced a series of dictatorships and prominent levels of unemployment, and so governments had no other option but to continue extracting natural resources to employ their populations and stitch-up a bleeding economy. For Brazil and many others, mining for resources makes perfect sense. The physical extraction, transportation and exportation process employs hundreds of thousands, and due to low labour costs, it produces decent profit margins. Therefore, it comes as no surprise when nations in the global south extract resources for their economies – they intend to build infrastructure, provide a better standard of living, and ascend the global diplomatic ladder –, economic development is still very much at the forefront of the agenda. It is clear that developing countries must rebuild their economies, and sadly one of the ways to do that is to extract natural resources. Further, the prioritization of economic growth results in governments taking short-cuts and reducing regulations on companies, which further propels the climate crisis. The Democratic Republic of Congo is a perfect example of a government that reduces regulation to perpetuate profits. As the host of over 60% of the world’s cobalt reserves – a necessity for batteries in electric vehicles – the DRC’s primary economic engine is mining and exporting cobalt. Sadly, but somewhat unsurprisingly, 90% of the artisanal miners operate informally; they cut down large sections of forestry to reach the cobalt mines, and mercury is often used in the extraction process; consequently, these practices harm biodiversity.
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