Dean's World

Quoted:

DEAR CHAIRMAN POMBO: It was a pleasure participating in your 13 May 2003 hearing regarding the Kyoto Protocol. As you requested, I am happy to provide this letter to clarify and expand on your question during the hearing about how my experiences working and living in Africa affect my insights into the issue of global warming.

After graduating from college in 1973 I applied for service as a missionary to Kenya. I was appointed to a position as ‘‘Science Master’’ at the Baptist High School in Nyeri, meaning I taught the physics and chemistry courses to African students from mostly rural areas. Baptist High was a boarding school, so many of our students came from homes several miles away. On weekends I would travel to the surrounding small villages to meet the students’ families and speak in their churches. Nyeri was a small, upcountry town about 90 miles north of Nairobi. Most of the people in this area lived on small ‘‘shambas’’, 3 to 5 acre farms on which maize and other foods were grown. At 6000+ feet elevation, some days and most nights were quite cool, requiring energy for warmth as well as cooking and light. There was no electricity in these rural homes.

With only 3 to 5 acres on the family shamba, every square inch was utilized for food production and living space, so the search for fuel was a daily chore for the women and young girls. I would see them daily set out to the edge of the nearest forest, usually several miles away, to cut down wet, green trees, chop the branches into suitable lengths, tie them into 80 pound bundles and load them on their backs for the trek home. Many of these women were either pregnant or carrying small babies in blankets tied in front of them. They would bend forward almost 90 degrees so as to balance the wood and maintain forward momentum without falling. Older women developed a characteristic sway-back from years of burden bearing as they hauled not only wood, but food to and from the markets and water from a creek to the home.

The typical home was a mud-walled, thatched-roof structure. Smoke from the cooking fire fueled by undried wood was especially irritating to breathe as one entered the home. The fine particles and toxic emissions from these in-house, open fires assured serious lung and eye diseases for a lifetime. And, keeping such fires fueled and burning required a major amount of time, preventing the people from engaging in other less environmentally damaging pursuits.

When the Arab Oil Embargo hit in October 1973, the price of fuel rose dramatically. Oil’s scarcity caused petrol (gasoline) stations to close on weekends. What little advanced infrastructure already in place that depended on oil was rendered intermittent or ineffective.

For example, taxi prices increased so that the typical African could not afford the desperately needed trip to the town hospital; rumors spread that driving with the headlights on wasted fuel, so night automobile accidents soared; electric power to the few essential institutions which needed it often failed. To people already living on the edge of existence, any perturbation in energy costs was enough to cause significant distress.

The poorest people suffered the most with the rising energy costs as what little dependency they had was now out of reach. I’ve always believed that establishing a series of coal-fired power plants in countries such as Kenya (with simple electrification to the villages) would be the best advancement for the African people and the African environment. An electric light bulb, a microwave oven and a small heater in each home would make a dramatic difference in the overall standard of living. No longer would a major portion of time be spent on gathering inefficient and toxic fuel. The serious health problems of hauling heavy loads and lung poisoning would be much reduced. Women would be freed to engage in activities of greater productivity and advancement. Light on demand would allow for more learning to take place and other activities to be completed. Electricity would also foster a more efficient transfer of important information from radio or television. And finally, the preservation of some of the most beautiful and diverse habitats on the planet would be possible if wood were eliminated as a source of energy.

Providing energy from sources other than biomass (wood and dung), such as coal-produced electricity, would bring longer and better lives to the people of the developing world and greater opportunity for the preservation of their natural ecosystems. Let me assure you, not withstanding the views of extreme environmentalists, that Africans do indeed want a higher standard of living. They want to live longer and healthier with less burden bearing and with more opportunities to advance. New sources of affordable, accessible energy would set them down the road of achieving such aspirations.

These experiences made it clear to me that affordable, accessible energy was desperately needed in African countries. But the energy issue is relevant here too. My wife, Babs, is the President of the Board of Directors of the Madison County Christian Women’s Job Corps. This privately-funded, voluntarily-directed organization seeks to train women to obtain the type of job skills needed today.

Most of the women, often single parents, are in financial crisis. Increasing the cost of energy for these women would disproportionately restrict their ability to provide for themselves and their families. As in Africa, ideas for limiting energy use, as embodied in the Kyoto protocol, create the greatest hardships for the poorest among us. As I mentioned in the Hearing, enacting any of these noble sounding initiatives to deal with climate change through increased energy costs, might make a wealthy urbanite or politician feel good about themselves, but they would not improve the environment and would most certainly degrade the lives of those who need help now. I appreciate the opportunity to respond with further explanation of my experiences in Africa and my views on energy availability.

Sincerely, JOHN R. CHRISTY, Director, Earth System Science Center, Professor, Atmospheric Science, Alabama State Climatologist.