How does global poverty damage the environment?

- Low-income individuals often need to purchase cheap “stuff”. And often companies that sell for cheap have the worst environmental policies.
– Lack of education. Higher income individuals have more access to education (even basic information like how to recycle).
– Low-income individuals are often living in something that is called “survival mode”. This means that they don’t have the same drive as others to participate in global movements. They are focused on surviving on a day to day basis. We could argue that keeping the environment alive is survival. But this is more basic than that even.
– Lack of money leads to lack of choice. For example instead of making sure your home is lead free people from the low-income category have less choice in where they live.

(the above is more about local poverty)

Globally low-income people are selling their crops as ‘cash crops’ versus keeping the food for themselves. This means they are using agriculture for money then they are more focused on getting money than preserving their local environment.

I think the biggest contributor of environmental damage is lack of concern not global poverty.

in many cases, poverty causes desperate actions and figuring out ways to make money that uses up resources that are already depleted

It’s the Trade – Aid – Debt conundrum…. Poorer countries are forced into a cycle powered by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The imbalance causes resources to be exhausted when in reality trade, aid, and debt should be mandated to positively contribute and build a sustainable environment; not make the richer countries richer and the poorer countries poorer.

But in reality, don’t modernized nations damage the environment more than developing nations? Thus, how can we justify poverty reduction as the best method for improving the environment?

Your question deals with maybe 10% or less, of the problem…

… which problem is 90% due to CO2 and other emissions which are part of a business-consumer cycle which must be broken…......and which is NOT linked strongly to the poverty-stricken of the world.

Last I heard, the US was the top producer of CO2!

In addition to the examples mentioned by @RedPowerLady, poor sanitation and lack of waste management services leads to people dumping their garbage in rivers, lakes, canyons, etc.

@holden Good one!

The most environmental damage is done by those who are wealthier, but as some have pointed out, there are some particular problems associated with those who are poor. One problem that is particularly prominent in Africa is the use of wildlife for food.

There are no trees in Haiti. The country was denuded by the need for firewood and charcoal because of the desperate poverty.

At some point global poverty actually doesn’t damage the environment directly. Carbon emissions for example go down dramatically.

Indirectly global poverty is responsible for a lot of future damage, because poverty and the lack of education lead to overpopulation. More and more resources will be needed to accommodate more and more people on this planet.

well i thing we need to help the environmemt so we can have no more global warming we need to same are world that we live in