March of the eco-imperialists

A leaflet from the charity Practical Action recently solicited donations for some "real cutting-edge technology" to give to African farmers: namely, a plough.

Ploughs might cut the earth, but they haven't been "cutting-edge technology" for more than 400 years. Nor have water pumps, operated by pulling on a rope or laboriously treading on a wooden platform, which are being pushed onto communities from Ghana to India by carbon-offsetting charities like Climate Care, as replacements for diesel-powered machinery. Some of the treadle pumps are even disguised as roundabouts to exploit child labour.

There is no disguising the utter poverty of what now passes for 'sustainable development'. Our aspirations for Third World development have sunk so low that our idea of what these charities call 'appropriate technology' are devices outlawed in British prisons in the 19th Century.

As climate change hysteria has gripped

Western elites, instead of marvelling at the way China and India's rapid economic development has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of grinding poverty, we see them as 'climate criminals'.

The WWF has famously warned that we will need three more planets for everyone to enjoy Western European lifestyles. Never mind that China and India are still the 129th and 167th poorest countries on earth, not to mention the rest of the developing world. The only way to save the planet, greens insist, is to scale back consumption at home, and prevent development abroad.

This worldview puts the environment, not people, at its centre, and its consequences are disastrous. Eco-activists managed to slash €4bn worth of EU aid to Third World industries in 2007 alone. They have sabotaged World Bank funding for infrastructure projects, like a hydro-electric dam in Gujarat province, India, which would have provided power for 5,000 villages, industries and sewage-treatment works, irrigation for crops and clean water for 35m people - all because, as one activist said, it would "change the path of the river, kill little creatures along its banks and uproot tribal