[Lex Computer & Tech Group/LCTG] Fwd: Sri Lanka Just Fell. What Do We Have to Do With It?
Ted Kochanski
tedpkphd at gmail.com
Wed Jul 13 10:21:31 PDT 2022
All,
Greeness is starting to "go sour" -- so far mostly in a number of
"lesser-developed" countries such as Ghana where the World Bank has forced
the "premature" at-best transition from a fossil fuel and inorganic [aka
the"Green Revolution'' which broke the back of the Malthusians] fertilizers
and modern farming economy to the "old ways". For the people of the cities
-- this manifests itself in annoying rolling or unplanned power outages
[sometime that means no drinking water]and long lines for fuel -- However
for the people of the agricultural hinterlands -- this is all about rolling
back civilization to subsistence-agriculture [and associated
abbreviated life-spans] from which they were just starting to escape
New -- places like the Netherlands with the most up-to-date economies and
most modern agriculture are starting to "feel the bite" of Greeness -- and
they aren't liking it -- witness the farmers protests in the past few days
Ted
Ted
On Wed, Jul 13, 2022 at 8:51 AM Marvin Menzin <mmenzin at icloud.com> wrote:
> After the energy discussion here is a similar issue to do with
> fertilizers.
> think of the damage people can do with abrupt and unproven changes to a
> working system based on some theory pushed to its limits for ideological
> reasons . great leap backward for these poor Sri Lankans ..
>
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> *From:* Common Sense with Bari Weiss <bariweiss at substack.com>
> *Date:* July 12, 2022 at 6:05:23 AM EDT
> *To:* mmenzin at comcast.net
> *Subject:* *Sri Lanka Just Fell. What Do We Have to Do With It?*
> *Reply-To:* Common Sense with Bari Weiss <
> reply+11vx2o&1pweo&&029e527d10f024143248c892c6a428db42e960c3e6a7752c10f62167632c46d8 at mg1.substack.com
> >
>
>
> The anti-growth environmental movement deserves much of the blame.
>
> Open in browser
> <https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=260347&post_id=63634992&utm_source=email>
> Sri Lanka Just Fell. What Do We Have to Do With It?
> <https://substack.com/redirect/2/eyJlIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuY29tbW9uc2Vuc2UubmV3cy9wL3NyaS1sYW5rYS1qdXN0LWZlbGwtd2hhdC1kby13ZS1oYXZlP3Rva2VuPWV5SjFjMlZ5WDJsa0lqb3lPRGc0TURFMkxDSndiM04wWDJsa0lqbzJNell6TkRrNU1pd2lhV0YwSWpveE5qVTNOakl3TVRVNExDSnBjM01pT2lKd2RXSXRNall3TXpRM0lpd2ljM1ZpSWpvaWNHOXpkQzF5WldGamRHbHZiaUo5LlFrSkxwNHdxZHppT2lnZ19XdHVfV3VNaUxBMXd2ZGwwLThDUUl2UTJfY1EiLCJwIjo2MzYzNDk5MiwicyI6MjYwMzQ3LCJmIjpmYWxzZSwidSI6Mjg4ODAxNiwiaWF0IjoxNjU3NjIwMTU4LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMCIsInN1YiI6ImxpbmstcmVkaXJlY3QifQ.JeL_3aipl-Hek2_Wx-MEK5dtaWBCX-r1r20UBKBnIrM?>The
> anti-growth environmental movement deserves much of the blame.
>
>
> <https://substack.com/redirect/10fd35fa-a86a-4eac-8411-5a37dd9f6986?u=2888016>
> Michael Shellenberger
> <https://substack.com/redirect/10fd35fa-a86a-4eac-8411-5a37dd9f6986?u=2888016>
> Jul 12
> <https://substack.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.V7Tghs6VmXmLjAfJBu61qkXLE5YxyHOZxpCb_VncHG0?> [image:
> Comment]
> <https://substack.com/redirect/2/eyJlIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuY29tbW9uc2Vuc2UubmV3cy9wL3NyaS1sYW5rYS1qdXN0LWZlbGwtd2hhdC1kby13ZS1oYXZlL2NvbW1lbnRzP3Rva2VuPWV5SjFjMlZ5WDJsa0lqb3lPRGc0TURFMkxDSndiM04wWDJsa0lqbzJNell6TkRrNU1pd2lhV0YwSWpveE5qVTNOakl3TVRVNExDSnBjM01pT2lKd2RXSXRNall3TXpRM0lpd2ljM1ZpSWpvaWNHOXpkQzF5WldGamRHbHZiaUo5LlFrSkxwNHdxZHppT2lnZ19XdHVfV3VNaUxBMXd2ZGwwLThDUUl2UTJfY1EiLCJwIjo2MzYzNDk5MiwicyI6MjYwMzQ3LCJmIjpmYWxzZSwidSI6Mjg4ODAxNiwiaWF0IjoxNjU3NjIwMTU4LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMCIsInN1YiI6ImxpbmstcmVkaXJlY3QifQ.grLGozjBMHnf7LvtMPqwPtsdXgAupXbFTiV0u7yyElI?&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email> [image:
> Share]
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>
> <https://substack.com/redirect/8d2d5c05-ee80-4fd0-be99-21ea250c4d4d?u=2888016> An
> activist shouts slogans and holds up bread as he protests against rising
> living costs in Colombo on March 15, 2022. (Ishara S. Kodikara via Getty
> Images)
>
> Sri Lanka has fallen. On Saturday, thousands of protesters stormed the
> presidential palace. While the angry and the aggrieved swam
> <https://substack.com/redirect/0fc19f16-0717-4627-a371-06d1414ad22c?u=2888016>
> in the president’s pool, had a cookout on his lawn, lounged on his bed, and
> set fire to his residence, the president was spirited away to a naval ship
> off the Sri Lankan coast.
>
> The proximate reason for the chaos is that the nation is bankrupt,
> suffering its worst financial crisis in decades
> <https://substack.com/redirect/dae94dd7-c0d0-49ac-8be7-4d9fda0dff4f?u=2888016>.
> Millions are struggling to buy food, medicine and fuel. Between June 2021
> to June 2022, food prices rose
> <https://substack.com/redirect/c0134aa1-72f9-461b-9054-50298584d5f7?u=2888016> by
> 80 percent. Last month, annual inflation hit nearly 55 percent
> <https://substack.com/redirect/2492bc6d-b18d-48a1-9260-b1af951f36ae?u=2888016>.
> Since the start of the pandemic, half a million people have fallen
> <https://substack.com/redirect/f0f7efc4-fc20-4404-a738-885d19a03370?u=2888016> into
> poverty.
>
> If you’ve never paid attention to the island country just off India’s
> southeastern coast, you might think this is just how it goes in developing
> nations. But the truth is that Sri Lanka had been gradually rebuilding
> itself—after decades of civil war and authoritarianism—and then this
> happened. We in the West had a lot to do with it.
>
> The underlying reason for the fall of Sri Lanka is that its
> leaders—starting with former President Maithripala Sirisena and continuing
> with his successor, the recently deposed Gotabaya Rajapaksa—fell under the
> spell of Western green elites peddling organic agriculture and “ESG,” which
> refers to investments made following supposedly higher Environmental,
> Social, and Governance criteria. Sri Lanka has a near-perfect ESG score
> <https://substack.com/redirect/77864164-c2bc-495b-8e02-053ac999c019?u=2888016> of
> 98—higher than Sweden (96) and the United States (51).
>
> What does having such a high ESG score mean? In short, it meant that Sri
> Lanka’s two million farmers were forced to stop using fertilizers and
> pesticides, laying waste to its critical agricultural sector. (Never mind
> that Tesla has been booted
> <https://substack.com/redirect/f9eedfc9-de34-40d1-9316-a98fe9dc97b1?u=2888016>
> from the ESG S&P Index, while Exxon Mobil is in the top ten. None of it
> makes much sense.)
>
> To be sure, there were other factors behind Sri Lanka’s fall. Covid
> lockdowns and a 2019 bombing hurt tourism—an industry that usually
> generates between $3 billion
> <https://substack.com/redirect/54c8454b-1d59-42eb-960c-2ea6b1b08b27?u=2888016> and
> $5 billion
> <https://substack.com/redirect/1a693711-57cc-42fe-9b69-46ce823d8f5c?u=2888016>
> a year. Sri Lanka racked up huge foreign debt, with China lending the
> country billions of dollars as part of its Belt and Road initiative.
> Transportation costs have rocketed 128 percent since May due to rising oil
> prices. And overall trends have not helped: Since 2012, growth has been
> declining
> <https://substack.com/redirect/d6bc6231-7503-47ff-b390-2b9d954a2050?u=2888016>
> .
>
> But the biggest problem was Sri Lanka’s chemical fertilizer ban, which
> passed last year and was central to the country’s effort to comply with ESG.
>
> The numbers are shocking.
>
> One-third of Sri Lanka’s farm lands were dormant
> <https://substack.com/redirect/d0574c31-3487-4c9d-8637-038da3d8fe02?u=2888016> in
> 2021 due to the fertilizer ban. Over 90 percent of Sri Lanka’s farmers had
> used chemical fertilizers before they were banned. After they were banned,
> an astonishing 85 percent experienced
> <https://substack.com/redirect/54c8454b-1d59-42eb-960c-2ea6b1b08b27?u=2888016> crop
> losses. Rice production fell 20 percent and prices skyrocketed 50 percent
> <https://substack.com/redirect/3f943e27-79ad-4b8a-8c12-90be9d7c7b56?u=2888016> in
> just six months. Sri Lanka had to import $450 million worth of rice despite
> having been self-sufficient just months earlier. The price of carrots and
> tomatoes rose
> <https://substack.com/redirect/1a693711-57cc-42fe-9b69-46ce823d8f5c?u=2888016> fivefold.
> All this had a dramatic impact
> <https://substack.com/redirect/c0134aa1-72f9-461b-9054-50298584d5f7?u=2888016>
> on the more than 15 million people of the country’s 22 million people
> <https://substack.com/redirect/c0134aa1-72f9-461b-9054-50298584d5f7?u=2888016>
> who are directly or indirectly dependent on farming.
>
> Things were worse for smaller farmers. In the Rajanganaya region, where
> the majority of farmers operate two-and-a-half-acre lots, families reported
> 50 percent to 60 percent reductions in their harvest. “Before the ban, this
> was one of the biggest markets in the country, with tons and tons of rice
> and vegetables,” one farmer said
> <https://substack.com/redirect/d53fc5cf-b4ae-47b3-9663-65b9ea8826ae?u=2888016>
> earlier this year. “But after the ban, it became almost zero. If you talk
> to the rice mills, they don’t have any stock because people’s harvest
> dropped so much. The income of this whole community has dropped to an
> extremely low level.”
>
> But the damage to tea was the key to Sri Lanka’s ruin. Before 2021, tea
> production generated $1.3 billion in exports annually. Tea exports paid
> <https://substack.com/redirect/b8af5a48-2094-4906-a198-2cc120b25561?u=2888016> for
> 71 percent of the nation’s food imports before 2021.
>
> The fertilizer ban, starting in April 2021, changed everything. Four
> months after the ban took effect, the president, realizing that things were
> not going according to plan, lifted
> <https://substack.com/redirect/088f2a78-eb36-4d53-8ee7-5abc602a9f14?u=2888016>
> the ban on the import of chemical fertilizers—and then, two days later,
> reinstated it.
>
> The results have been devastating and widely predicted by tea farmers,
> with exports crashing
> <https://substack.com/redirect/723dcf20-dd73-45bc-9d8e-9a14c5273bba?u=2888016>
> 18 percent between November 2021 and February 2022—reaching
> <https://substack.com/redirect/61cfd65b-1cea-4809-902a-02764f9c91ef?u=2888016>
> their lowest level in more than two decades.
>
> “We don’t have enough chemical fertilizers,” Rajapaksa admitted
> <https://substack.com/redirect/1a693711-57cc-42fe-9b69-46ce823d8f5c?u=2888016>
> in December 2021, “because we didn’t import them. There is a shortage.”
>
> In May 2022, Sri Lanka failed to pay
> <https://substack.com/redirect/ee813afa-8bd8-485f-90cc-1b2e30650b53?u=2888016> $77
> million on its foreign debt repayments. That may seem like a small sum in
> the bigger scheme of things, but the default made it hard for Sri Lanka to
> borrow money. So, it devalued its currency, inflation rose 30 percent, and
> the government ran out of the cash it needed to import fuel, food and
> medicines.
> ------------------------------
>
> <https://substack.com/redirect/41ebd5dd-9318-432c-8f4c-383e50d3e750?u=2888016> Protestors
> swim in a pool inside the compound of Sri Lanka's Presidential Palace on
> July 9, 2022. (AFP via Getty Images)
> ------------------------------
>
> What, exactly, were Rajapaksa and other Sri Lankan leaders thinking? Why
> did they engage in such a radical experiment with the most important
> industry in their country?
>
> After World War II, Sri Lanka, like many poor nations, subsidized
> <https://substack.com/redirect/5abdba60-6677-4ff4-a4b9-099af591dbb8?u=2888016> farmers
> to transition from biofertilizers, like manure, to chemical fertilizers in
> what is known as the Green Revolution. (This was popularized by Norman
> Borlaug
> <https://substack.com/redirect/fb36eb74-65ad-4759-b083-9e777c425a68?u=2888016>,
> the Nobel Prize-winning agronomist.) Rice yields rose quickly, and the
> nation overcame chronic food shortages
> <https://substack.com/redirect/fb2bbac6-11b8-4940-80e6-12a384060f7e?u=2888016>
> and started earning foreign revenue through the export of rubber and tea
> <https://substack.com/redirect/723f2a77-ea21-4b5f-bb5b-7239e5f3c091?u=2888016>
> .
>
> As yields rose, young people were able to get jobs in cities. Salaries
> increased
> <https://substack.com/redirect/404cb128-a52a-464f-89ff-53f1152ebf31?u=2888016>—so
> much so that Sri Lanka became a middle-income nation.
>
> But what looked like a dream to most Sri Lankans looked like a nightmare
> to many environmentalists in the West. In the 1970s, Stanford biologist
> Paul Ehrlich and other activists raged against the Green Revolution. They
> claimed that overpopulation would cause mass death and suffering and that
> humankind needed to play “triage.” In other words, we had to let some
> people die so the rest of us could live.
>
> In their 1977 book, *Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment*,
> Ehrlich and his co-authors, Anne Ehrlich, his wife, and John Holdren, who
> would go on to become Barack Obama’s science adviser, argued that the world
> did not have enough energy to support the economic aspirations of the
> world’s poor. “Most plans for modernizing agriculture in less-developed
> nations call for introducing energy-intensive practices similar to those
> used in North America and western Europe—greatly increased use of
> fertilizers and other farm chemicals, tractors and other machinery,
> irrigation, and supporting transportation networks—all of which require
> large inputs of fossil fuels,” they wrote. The better strategy, they
> argued, was “much greater use of human labor and relatively less dependence
> on heavy machinery and manufactured fertilizers and pesticides.”
>
> In other words, they were calling for poor nations to do what Sri Lanka
> did *before* the Green Revolution. Such labor-intensive farming “causes
> far less environmental damage than does energy-intensive Western
> agriculture,” they claimed
> <https://substack.com/redirect/fec80e4e-dab3-4feb-b60f-13a681ea2eec?u=2888016>.
> The “secret” to “alternative farming methods” was for poor, small farmers
> to remain poor and small.
>
> The Ehrlichs and Holdren were followers of the late 18th-century British
> economist Robert Thomas Malthus, who thought human beings were doomed to
> overpopulate and starve. Malthus professed
> <https://substack.com/redirect/fec80e4e-dab3-4feb-b60f-13a681ea2eec?u=2888016> concern
> for the poor while advocating for policies that would keep them poor. He
> urged governments to prop up the old aristocratic system by prioritizing
> agriculture over manufacturing, and pointed to the superiority of the
> country life that he, as an aristocrat, enjoyed.
>
> Some defend Malthus by claiming that he wrote his famous 1798 book, *An
> Essay on the Principle of Population*, when it was still too early to
> know that the Industrial Revolution would radically increase food
> production. But that didn’t stop his ideas from leading subsequent
> generations of environmentalists to obsess over population—and oppose
> economic growth.
>
> In the 1960s and 1970s, neo-Malthusians like Paul Ehrlich and Holdren
> justified their opposition to the extension of cheap energy and
> agricultural modernization to poor nations by using the left-wing language
> of redistribution. It wasn’t that poor nations needed to develop. It was
> that rich nations needed to consume less.
>
> Over the years, this language was picked up by the United Nations and
> influential environmentalists, from Greta Thunberg
> <https://substack.com/redirect/de1d0296-c410-4798-a607-a59ee2be16c7?u=2888016>
> and Michael Pollan
> <https://substack.com/redirect/30223c78-7c29-450b-812b-d649192a1ed4?u=2888016> to
> Vandana Shiva, the Indian ecofeminist, and Frances Moore Lappé, the author
> of the bestselling book *Diet For a Small Planet*. Organic farming, they
> said, would reduce environmental harm.
>
> They had a deep impact on Sri Lankan intellectuals and policymakers.
>
> Dr. Ranil Senanayake, for example, was one of the first students to study
> organic agriculture at the University of California, Berkeley, in the early
> 1970s. He received a grant
> <https://substack.com/redirect/6437ebcb-9c12-4307-833a-bd4e39109a32?u=2888016> from
> the Ashoka Foundation and was an advisor to the U.N. Environment Program,
> and, since the early 1980s, he has spearheaded Sri Lanka’s organic-farming
> movement.
>
> Where in 1977, the Ehrlichs and Holdren proposed international control of
> the “development, administration, conservation and distribution of all
> natural resources,” many green NGOs and U.N. agencies today similarly seek
> control over energy and food policies in developing nations. Only they do
> so in the name of climate change and biodiversity. The Ashoka Foundation,
> for example, is funded by MasterCard, Disney, and J.P. Morgan, among other
> multinational firms. There’s no evidence these corporations have any
> interest in organic farming per se. But the cause of organic farming in
> places like Sri Lanka has become a signal that one is on the right side of
> history.
>
> Progressive economists, along with the World Bank, the World Economic
> Forum, and other globalizing institutions, have since promoted
> “sustainable” agriculture and tourism for poor and developing nations like
> Sri Lanka. “Given its education levels,” wrote
> <https://substack.com/redirect/bafd5fd5-325b-4bea-99b3-ce1b12d9cae3?u=2888016> progressive
> economist Joseph Stiglitz for the World Economic Forum in 2016, “Sri Lanka
> may be able to move directly into more technologically advanced sectors,
> high-productivity organic farming, and higher-end tourism.”
>
> It was into this context that Sri Lanka went organic.
>
> In 2015, then-President Sirisena announced plans for a “toxin-free
> nation.” President Rajapaksa, who came to power in 2019, built on this
> theme. He called for a return to the pre-Green Revolution days—demanding
> the use of biofertilizer
> <https://substack.com/redirect/1f7e2d9c-a97a-43de-997f-1ffac7f2252c?u=2888016>s
> and drawing on superstitious claims
> <https://substack.com/redirect/f82de401-bc71-44dd-b4c6-6e5dd51a13ae?u=2888016>
> that farm chemicals caused kidney
> <https://substack.com/redirect/e85b57d9-2b0a-4f8e-8e34-fd966669141d?u=2888016>
> disease
> <https://substack.com/redirect/4231014d-53b8-4691-8578-27cdd77fc29f?u=2888016>
> .
>
> Rajapaksa was elected on a platform to transition
> <https://substack.com/redirect/54c8454b-1d59-42eb-960c-2ea6b1b08b27?u=2888016>
> the nation to organic agriculture over a 10-year
> <https://substack.com/redirect/54c8454b-1d59-42eb-960c-2ea6b1b08b27?u=2888016> year
> period. “Sustainable food systems are part of Sri Lanka’s rich
> sociocultural and economic heritage,” he told a U.N.
> <https://substack.com/redirect/304daefb-be11-444c-8de8-34cc9be052ca?u=2888016>
> summit.
>
> In December 2020, Sri Lanka’s environment minister announced
> <https://substack.com/redirect/1873fd96-be6e-4431-8919-3323378e26dd?u=2888016> a
> government program to save the planet from “our own geoengineering misuse,
> greed and selfishness” before a conference on cutting nitrogen fertilizer
> waste. It was part of a broader effort by the Sri Lanka government to seek
> the blessing of Western banks and the UN under so-called ESG goals.
>
> Then, in April 2021, the government made good on its pledge by banning
> chemical fertilizers.
>
> The move enjoyed support in Washington, D.C., and Brussels. One month
> after Sri Lanka announced the fertilizer ban, in May 2021, the World Bank
> rewarded
> <https://substack.com/redirect/ad8fd092-77b6-4be5-b94c-c0ad3418fd2e?u=2888016> Sri
> Lanka a $125 million grant for small farmers on top of $2 billion in other
> grants targeting transportation, agriculture, education and healthcare. The
> EU provided
> <https://substack.com/redirect/ad8fd092-77b6-4be5-b94c-c0ad3418fd2e?u=2888016> a
> $1 billion grant to reduce poverty, among other things.
>
> But at the very same moment, Sri Lanka’s agricultural scientists and
> economists were warning
> <https://substack.com/redirect/2277c2ba-b2b6-43ec-b17f-43890091268d?u=2888016>
> Rajapaksa that the fertilizer ban would be disastrous—leading to dramatic
> reductions in rice paddy yields. They also warned of the impact on tea,
> predicting a loss of nearly $233 million.
>
> Organic agriculture around the world is fueled by the appeal-to-nature
> fallacy, which holds that “natural” things—wild fish, manure, wood fuel—are
> better for the environment than “artificial” things like farmed fish,
> chemical fertilizers, and fossil fuels. This ignores the fact that the
> so-called artificial things are as natural as the “natural” things. They’re
> simply newer.
>
> What the proponents of organic agriculture really want, like the
> Malthusians of yesteryear, is to stop economic growth, which they believe
> drives overpopulation, which they insist is the real basis for
> environmental disaster. They believe that by targeting innovations like
> chemical fertilizers, they get to the root of the problem: They cut off the
> growth at its knees.
>
> Nonsense. Humankind needs chemical fertilizers to produce sufficient food
> and use land efficiently. Around three or four billion acres of
> *additional* farm land would be required
> <https://substack.com/redirect/fff3bd9b-b73d-47f6-b035-f08bf5bbe4e8?u=2888016> to
> meet today’s food demand without chemical fertilizers.
> ------------------------------
>
> <https://substack.com/redirect/71668453-1b91-4c56-9c94-ed438f6a48fe?u=2888016> Sri
> Lankans occupy the president's official residence on July 10, 2022.
> (Tharaka Basnayaka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
> ------------------------------
>
> So what, exactly, were Sri Lanka’s leaders thinking? They weren’t. They
> were following a rigid, pro-scarcity dogma, which was developed in the 18th
> century and has been recycled and greenwashed through the centuries by
> global elites who use nature as cover for their anti-human,
> anti-civilization worldview and policy agenda.
>
> Not everybody got Sri Lanka wrong. The United States Department of
> Agriculture warned against it. “The lack of organic fertilizer productive
> capacity, coupled with the absence of a formalized plan to import organic
> fertilizers in lieu of chemical fertilizers, raises the potential for an
> adverse impact on food security,” it warned in 2021, around the same time
> the World Bank announced its grant in support of Sri Lanka’s efforts.
> “There has been no mention by the government yet as to how it would tackle
> a food security crisis brought about by drops in crop yields.”
>
> The Green Revolution, fossil fuels, and chemical fertilizers were—and
> remain—more good than bad. High-yield farming produces far less nitrogen
> pollution run-off than low-yield farming. While rich nations produce 70
> percent higher yields than poor nations, they use just 54 percent more
> nitrogen. Nations get better at using nitrogen fertilizer over time. Since
> the early 1960s, the Netherlands has doubled its yields while using the
> same amount of fertilizer.
>
> To be sure, we should continue the trend away from dirtier to cleaner
> fuels, or what is known as “up the energy ladder,” from wood to coal to
> natural gas to nuclear. But the way to do that is gradually, not abruptly,
> and with greater scientific, technological, and economic progress, not
> less. Such a process will allow us to use less fertilizer more precisely
> over time.
>
> Environmentalists, Norman Borlaug once observed
> <https://substack.com/redirect/f08d34be-a44f-4e99-89be-0e6862eee887?u=2888016>,
> “have never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their
> lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they
> lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for
> fifty years, they would be crying out for tractors and fertilizers and
> irrigation canals, and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were
> trying to deny them these things.”
>
> Sri Lanka must deal with other factors beyond its immediate agriculture
> policy, including the willingness of its people and elites to fall for such
> obviously wrong dogmas, including around Covid, and the country’s deference
> to China
> <https://substack.com/redirect/b8779dce-776e-44ae-abcc-ef7943452160?u=2888016>. But
> at bottom, Sri Lanka will fix itself when its people understand that they
> must move from a biological economy to a chemical one if it is to sustain
> its population and return to middle-income status.
>
> Sri Lanka’s deposed president was right that organic farming and wood fuel
> use were part of Sri Lanka’s rich sociocultural and economic past. But he
> was wrong that it was a past worth returning to.
> Like
> <https://substack.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.V7Tghs6VmXmLjAfJBu61qkXLE5YxyHOZxpCb_VncHG0?> [image:
> Comment]Comment
> <https://substack.com/redirect/2/eyJlIjoiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuY29tbW9uc2Vuc2UubmV3cy9wL3NyaS1sYW5rYS1qdXN0LWZlbGwtd2hhdC1kby13ZS1oYXZlL2NvbW1lbnRzP3Rva2VuPWV5SjFjMlZ5WDJsa0lqb3lPRGc0TURFMkxDSndiM04wWDJsa0lqbzJNell6TkRrNU1pd2lhV0YwSWpveE5qVTNOakl3TVRVNExDSnBjM01pT2lKd2RXSXRNall3TXpRM0lpd2ljM1ZpSWpvaWNHOXpkQzF5WldGamRHbHZiaUo5LlFrSkxwNHdxZHppT2lnZ19XdHVfV3VNaUxBMXd2ZGwwLThDUUl2UTJfY1EiLCJwIjo2MzYzNDk5MiwicyI6MjYwMzQ3LCJmIjpmYWxzZSwidSI6Mjg4ODAxNiwiaWF0IjoxNjU3NjIwMTU4LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMCIsInN1YiI6ImxpbmstcmVkaXJlY3QifQ.grLGozjBMHnf7LvtMPqwPtsdXgAupXbFTiV0u7yyElI?&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email> [image:
> Share]Share
> <https://substack.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.HTj4ItwhfAopsQEEerrmUpKUHDZugSc4oWnAP4bSFok?>
>
> <https://substack.com/redirect/10fd35fa-a86a-4eac-8411-5a37dd9f6986?u=2888016>
> A guest post by
> Michael Shellenberger
> <https://substack.com/redirect/5d5f08a4-1afe-4a7d-9c73-ba4903a46f35?u=2888016>
> Best-selling author of "Apocalypse Never" and "San Fransicko"
> (HarperCollins 2020/2021) :: Time Magazine, “Hero of Environment” :: Green
> Book Award Winner :: Founder, Environmental Progress :: Forbes
> Subscribe to Michael
> <https://substack.com/redirect/75ec8714-a50e-4eaa-ab89-6289ef39375b?u=2888016>
>
> This post is only for paid subscribers of Common Sense
> <https://substack.com/redirect/76cb307a-2db4-43ef-9334-da967c227d9c?u=2888016>
> .
>
> Like & Comment
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>
> © 2022 Bari Weiss
> 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104
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