I don’t buy this liberal capitalist idea that exporting western technology is what will save the Global South. It never has. Honestly, I feel like it’s a mechanism to make vast amounts of profits for the manufacturers of the technology and it doesn’t change that much. At the beginning of the last century John D. Rockefeller gave away free oil lamps to China in the name of development and progress, and then sold them the oil. He made millions, the Chinese remained underdeveloped.

Technological solutions won’t end poverty, just like privatization won’t. So now, millions are Chinese are out of extreme poverty and work in sweatshops powered by coal power. Is that a better existence than living without lights.

One last thing-Spend some time with the Appalachian communities and those in solidarity with their resistance to coal. It sounds pretty patronizing to keep trying to justify their status as an environmental sacrifice zone (not to mention mining areas in China, the southwest U.S., the Gulf South and elsewhere).

Which is the greater injustice: entrenched global poverty and inequality, or mountaintop removal and its community impacts? How you answer this question may shape your opinion on CCS.

CCS raises important questions about justice. The environmental justice movement fervently opposes CCS because of the very real injustices of coal mining, mountaintop removal, and the associated impacts upon communities. Groups and communities battling the impacts of coal extraction are understandably skeptical, and often outright opposed, to any new technology that uses coal.

CCS is interpreted differently by those who focus on the injustices of global poverty and inequality. Jeffrey Sachs, for example, is a major supporter of CCS. This technology is seen as a potential way for developing countries to retain access to affordable electricity to lift their populations out of entrenched poverty. China, for example, has brought hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty with coal-powered development just in the last few decades.

One of the greatest sources of passion and dedication among today’s youth climate movement is its commitment to justice. “Clean and just energy future” – this has become our vision and rallying cry. But what is a just energy future? Which injustices are we addressing? How do we get there, and which of the many injustices do we tackle first? If you believe that global poverty is as great (or greater) of an injustice as mountaintop removal, are you justified in supporting CCS?