Comments by "Jason Dashney" (@jasondashney) on "The Problem with Solar Energy in Africa" video.

This is a worldwide problem. Canada went on a crusade against its own tar sands which resulted in actually importing oil from countries who do things in a far less environmentally responsible way. It's beyond belief.
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I think your anger should be towards your own government. No Western country is forcing anything on you guys. It's not like British ruled India from a century ago. Countries that struggle do so because their own governments are corrupt or incompetent, or both. To place all the blame on others when you are a completely sovereign nation won't help anything. Change starts at home. Countries need to fix their own institutions before anything will change. Rule of law, fair and consistent rules across all institutions is absolutely vital. When visiting countries that aren't considered first world, it becomes immediately apparent how their institutions need to change and strengthen and lose the corruption. Until a country tackle the problems from within, it will not change for the better. Once the customs department is run fairly, once the citizens can trust in the police process, once the taxes are collected fairly and transparently distributed, once elections are fair and open, THEN you can start blaming others.
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This is literally in no way imperialism. If Morocco sells locally grown spices to Europe it's the exact same thing. It's not imperialism simply because it's Europe. Imperialism means the European countries control the African ones and they to not. People keep using that word but they clearly don't know what it means.
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@marlan5470 it's so cliché, but "follow the money" pretty much does summarize 95% of what gets done in the world and why.
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I'm glad you brought that up. Most people on here are just virtue signalling about "imperialism".
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Amen. Now add to it the Woke points he went on in the end of the video, talking about imperialism etc. Nobody seems to want to approach any of our pressing problems with objectivity. Let's see what is realistically feasible here and now, what will most likely be feasible in the near future, and let's do a cost benefit analysis for all of it in both social and economic terms. We don't want to do that though. We want to play virtue signalling politics and as per usual, it's the poor that suffer the most. We waste more money and resources trying to appear to be doing the right things than we do actually doing the right things.
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If the pandemic taught us anything, it's that international trade is great, but it should only be a supplement, as opposed to a total abdication of domestic self sustainability.
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"long distance transmission of renewables is heating up" I see what you did there ;-P
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Or the countries in question could strengthen their own rule of law and institutional soundness. Then they could compete on their own terms.
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Amen. Like I've mentioned elsewhere, it's not like this is British ruled India where they can just do what they want. This video completely takes away the agency from the African nations and I find that to be very condescending. Yes the world bank will do shady things to sucker poor countries into doing things but that's not the way absolutely everything works. Just because a western country is doing something with a non-western country doesn't mean it's inherently bad.
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@ServingOthers99 "2 weeks later, still waiting on that confirmation video, this guy is either the worst PR person ever or a troll" Why does this person owe you anything? He is trying to contact RE, not you.
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This was a good video until you went all Woke at the end. It's imperialist to have a country voluntarily set up one of these things? They can say no anytime they want. They are not under European rule in any capacity. Just because Westerners are doing it with people not from the west does not make it imperialist. It's really sad that the younger generations have this built-in guilt like everything we do is "problematic". Where is Africa's agency in all this? It's not like British ruled India where are the British could come in and just set one of these things up and India didn't have a say. I think it's incredibly patronizing to the Africans to make it seem like they are just poured dummies who are getting taken advantage of. If bad things are happening to the locals, that's on the African government. Germany needs to make choices for Germany, Morocco needs to make choices for Morocco. Saying that any solution has to be grassroots is just bananas. Westerners can't win. If we intervene then we are evil imperialists, and if we stay out, then we are blind to the struggles of others and letting them suffer while we sit back in our opulence. I can't wait for the next generation because they hopefully will push back on the nonsense that you guys have been fed your whole lives. This woke garbage that hurts everyone.
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Yes, people poured billions and billions of dollars into the desert hundreds of engineers worked tirelessly on it and they all completely forgot that sand and weather exist. If only they have Arnold Keen to advise them.
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I've borderline had an urge to do the opposite because what is happening is the opposite of imperialism. The African nations are completely sovereign and are free to make their own choices. If they export locally grown spices or materials they have mined, it's perfectly OK and that's benefitting those countries and hooray for international trade, but as soon as it comes to exporting solar power it becomes imperialism?
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And by pain, you mean job.
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It's the strangest thing. Morocco can export something they grow, like spices, and everybody thinks that's wonderful because it brings money into the Moroccan economy. But if you export something they harvest from the sun and is a limitless supply, suddenly it's evil imperialism. This self flagellation of the younger generations when it comes to their western guilt is something to behold.
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