Ethiopia Plants 350M Trees in One Day to Combat Drought and Climate Change

Re:Ethiopia Plants 350M Trees in One Day to Combat Drought a... by BurningFrog on Tuesday July 30, 2019 @12:33PM (#20566483)

> Europe's industrialization as well as other Western countries heavily depended on the exploitation of third world countries

Causality and time moved the other direction.

Industrialization made Britain and a few other countries rich and technologically advanced. That enabled them to conquer and exploit third world countries. On balance, that enriched a lot of individuals and made a lot of leaders feel powerful, but didn't actually make the countries any richer.

The earlier conquests of the New World by Spain and Portugal was a whole other thing, mostly based on astonishing immunological luck.

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Re:Ethiopia Plants 350M Trees in One Day to Combat Drought a... by iguy on Wednesday July 31, 2019 @01:25AM (#20571898)

Yes to this.

Somehow it's easy to imagine that the Iraq war could happen for the benefit of some people's careers, and Halliburton's stockholders, while being a complete disaster for the US as a whole (not to mention for everyone else).

Yet when we discuss 19th C colonial adventures, the default assumption is that the much weaker states of the time certainly knew exactly what they were doing, for their own good. And could make sure that their generals, months away by post, certainly obeyed, and never got rich themselves...

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Re:Ethiopia Plants 350M Trees in One Day to Combat Drought a... by zapita on Sunday August 04, 2019 @06:28AM (#20605583)

British colonization of India started in 1612 and was complete around 1750. The first British colony in America was established in 1607.

Resources from the Indian Raj, in particular, played a crucial role in enriching Britain and therefore financing the industrial revolution.

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