The Greatest Environmental Danger: Poverty

August 12, 2025

Oil and natural gas are an essential part of the solution

Travel to any developing nation and you notice one thing immediately: how unsanitary it is. Trash in the streets. Debilitated homes. Polluted water. Smoke. Exhaust. Smog.

Working in 28 countries around the world, I learned each has its own smell. Today when I walk by a dumpster with food trash in it, the smell takes me back to Egypt in 1990. If I drive by a meatpacking plant, the smell takes me back to Pakistan, especially during Eid al-Adha, when entire villages would religiously sacrifice animals and pile their offal and carcasses in the community square.

Poverty creates environmental issues. Huge portions of the planet are engulfed in poverty, but it is not just a problem for the poorest nations on Earth. It is a major problem right here in the United States, in your state and in your community.

It doesn’t take a genius to look at a map and see that countries with the highest poverty rates also have the least access to reliable and affordable energy. The region of affected countries roughly stretches around the globe at the equator between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. Many of the poorest people of the world call this region home. Approximately 60% of the global population are energy deprived, meaning they don’t have affordable access to the energy they need. About 40% still depend on firewood and traditional biofuels to cook their meals and heat their homes. Just under 20% survive every year on less energy than it takes to run the average refrigerator in an American home. Most of these people live in this region of the world. And they all want more energy.

The United Nations predicts between now and 2050 we will add 1.7 billion people to the planet, and they will also need access to energy. So not only are we behind in supplying energy to the world, but we also have no substantial plan in place to accommodate the increased demand on energy in the future.

The logical result will be growth in energy demand, energy costs and the gap between the haves and have-nots. It will push more and more people into poverty. The greatest existential threat to the environment today is poverty.

However, this is not just a global issue that has no grounding in our own communities. U.S. Census Bureau data shows that in the United States, people living below the poverty line increased from 10.5% in 2019 to 11.6% in 2021. While the data is discouraging, it doesn’t include 2022-24 and the toll of inflation on those in the greatest need.

But what, you may ask, does this have to do with energy?

Good question. Many people feel that those below the poverty line just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and go do more work. However, energy, by definition, is the ability to do work. It is the ability to utilize computers, machinery, transportation, tools and equipment to do more work and make more money. When energy costs rise, work is diminished. Wages are diminished.

Many would say, “Well they should just use less energy.” How? There are basic conditions people must maintain in order to house a family in America. Those who live below the poverty line have few resources to diminish their energy demand. They live in houses that are less efficient. Their automobiles, appliances, tools, computers and HVAC systems are less efficient. The end result is they often utilize as much or more energy than a middle-class family.

Rising energy costs threaten those in the greatest need not just around the world, but in our own backyard. Here in Kansas, before the pandemic, the average family paid about 2.5% of their total income to cover their energy needs. Those who lived below the poverty line at that point paid about 8% of their total income to cover their energy needs. Following the pandemic and the onslaught of inflation, according to the most recent report from the state, the average Kansas family now pays about 6% of their total income for their energy needs. Many economists hold “6% of total income” as the threshold of a high energy burden.

While the Kansas report didn’t delineate what the burden was for those living below the poverty line, a logical conclusion of the data is that it has to be between 13% and 15% of total income. Think about that for a minute. How does someone living below the poverty line close the gap when they are spending 13% to 15% of their total income to cover basic energy needs? It is extremely improbable.

If you do an internet search on climate change and poverty, you will find countless articles and documents
detailing how climate change will push more people into poverty. It is used as a primary rationale for embracing energy policies aimed at limiting the impact of energy usage on the environment. Ironically, the reality we are facing today is those policies are the very catalyst for pushing more people into poverty.

Over the past several decades, there has been a growing effort to bolster the development of renewable and alternative energy forms, with wind turbines and solar panels leading the way. The popular talking point is these forms of energy will reduce energy costs. Why not? Wind is free and the sun is free. However, the equipment and technology to capture and, more importantly, transport that
energy is definitely not free.

Utility costs, especially electrical, have risen greatly over the past two decades. The spike directly correlates with the onboarding of more renewable energy sources. Many electric utilities parade the fact that they haven’t raised their rates — or only modestly increased them — during that time. Yet, utility bills continue to climb. Much of that comes not from electricity rates and usage, but from add-on charges to cover the development of transmission lines and power stations.

While the government positioned itself behind the infrastructure development of renewable energy, it also raised the bar on private infrastructure development in the fossil fuel industry through additional regulations. The lack of investment in fossil fuel transportation, refining and storage capacities hit home in 2021 with winter storm Uri. With natural gas, a commodity that can be readily stored and transported, in short supply, electricity rates skyrocketed.

That moment in time also exacerbated inflation. Energy always moves first. When energy prices spike, most other industries and the economy as a whole will follow, which makes perfect sense. You can’t do work without energy to transport and make materials. Byproducts of oil and natural gas, for example, are utilized to make over 6,000 raw materials that produce millions of products every day. When energy prices go up, the prices of those byproducts, and therefore the products, go up as well.

Affordable energy enables consumers to keep more of their income. It reduces the cost of necessary products. It provides the tools people need to advance themselves. That is true in a developing nation, and that is true in your own community.

Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus think tank, stated: “The main environmental challenge of the 21st century is poverty. When you don’t know where your next meal is coming from, it is hard to consider the environment 100 years down the line.”

Lomborg is no fan of fossil fuels. Yet he understands the important role they play in our society. In an article published in Project Syndicate, Lomborg points out findings from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change mapping five alternative global futures. He said: “That study shows that humanity — including the world’s poorest people — will be much better off in a ‘fossilfueled development’ scenario than under a ‘sustainable’ scenario of a lower-CO2 world. And this still holds true even after accounting for climate damage.”

Fossil fuels — petroleum especially, with its energy and byproducts — are essential to stop the rising tide of poverty. They are the most affordable and transportable forms of energy currently on the planet. Yet, in many places around the world, people are regularly denied access to the energy to do the work to earn the money they need to advance. They are not allowed access unless it is the “right” kind of energy. Any modern form of energy is better than cooking your meals on water buffalo dung patties. It is better for the person and better for the environment.

Make no mistake, poverty is the greatest danger to the environment. Oil and natural gas are an essential part of the solution.

If the poorest population cannot afford the energy they need to make life work, then they can’t comply with any environmental initiatives. Those on the precipice of poverty will be forced into poverty by the higher cost of energy. The snowball will grow and the environment will suffer.

It is no accident that rising GDPs around the world are directly correlated to the usage of fossil fuels in those countries. The more energy people have, the more work they can do, the more money they make, the better they live and the better they take care of the environment.

The fact of the matter is the United States does a better job than anyone else in producing, refining, transporting and utilizing petroleum. Especially here in Kansas — where the vast majority are local, independent producers — energy producers work in the communities where they live. They go to the same churches, restaurants, social clubs and sporting events you do. They drink the same water, hunt in the same fields and enjoy the same landscapes. They care about the environment, because it is their environment too. And they do a better job producing oil than any other country on Earth.

If you truly care about the environment, then you want petroleum produced here in the United States. If you truly care about those in the greatest need, then you want petroleum produced here in the United States. No other resource is better suited to enable people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Affordable, reliable energy is the key to reducing poverty and better protecting the environment.