When I was growing up in sunny, energy abundant Australia during the 80s and 90s, TV was the only real form of mind-numbing visual entertainment, at least for the underaged, and with remote control still in its early years, combined with a grand total of five channels to watch, TV commercials (aka advertising) were basically compulsory viewing.

Cue World Vision, which ran countless ads throughout that era (and probably still does today, just much less ubiquitously thanks to today’s diluted media scene), very effectively raising awareness of the terrible conditions for children in third world countries.

Now, imagine if, upon watching a World Vision ad and being moved to assist and do something about it, you decided that, rather than donating some tinned vegetables or money to help supply much needed nourishment to needy communities in such countries, you instead started a campaign to reduce access to food for the Third World.

Perhaps, in your wisdom, you decide that poor people from the third world really shouldn’t be eating processed foods from tins and relying on bad farming practices to feed themselves, and that those who know better should make it harder for those populations to access such culinary travesties, you know, for their own good.

Ridiculous right?

Well that’s the contradictory attitude of alarmists and many in the first world when it comes to energy poverty.

Only that, instead of ‘saving’ starving people by reducing their access to food, they are ensuring they remain in worse energy poverty than would otherwise be the case by removing energy sources from the playing field, all so that the ‘World’ can meet the long term targets of the Paris Agreement.

As we always point out on this site, in a global energy market ANY reduction in the total supply logically means more energy poverty than would otherwise be the case – that’s exactly how this works, even if you don’t like it.

So, unless you are like us and more than happy for the first world to work towards lowering energy costs and supplying the third world with every available energy source, including primarily fossil fuels (which are by far the easiest to arrange at this point in time), both now and well into the future, then the continuation of energy poverty is exactly what you are supporting.

Alternatively, you could take the humane, morally superior approach and donate a generator or two to people in energy poverty…

NOTE: Interestingly, despite energy poverty being the overwhelming cause of most other problems for the people that World Vision is trying to assist, there looks to be a clear effort (check the profiles below) to NOT MENTION energy related matters, including essentially anything that could conjure visions of diesel generators or dirty old lead-petrol guzzling vehicles, in the charity’s current marketing and communication strategies.

Why’s that do you think?… Of course it’s totally innocent, just an oversight, and nothing to do with avoiding suggestions that fossil fuels would be the saviour of many of these kids and their families…

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