Wealthy countries now use the fight against climate change as a reason for pursuing imperialist activities. This has been designated as green colonialism.  Daniel Butt defines colonialism as the combination of domination, cultural imposition and exploitation of one people by another. Rearranging this definition, we restrict green colonialism to the domination, the cultural imposition and the exploitation of peoples by other peoples using environmental excuses.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Green colonialism, whether exercised consciously or unconsciously, is causing serious harm to indigenous populations as well as populations from the least developed countries. This issue is almost absent from the media, which can be explained by the difficulty the impacted populations have to raise awareness about their situation. It is therefore the most important fight to lead: make sure that their voices are heard so that policymakers listen to them.  Financial institutions, multilateral development  banks, UN/WEF, G 20 leaders and wealthy nations are all putting political pressure to stop hydrocarbon projects in developing nations. They are only lending for "green energy solutions," ergo: solar and wind energy sources. Despite the fact that hydrocarbon, and natural gas in particular, is significantly more economical, and can provide more energy services to more people than renewables alone.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Electricity is the key for "developing" nations (and their citizens) to get out of poverty. Energy frees people from poverty. Natural gas is the cleanest of all fossil fuels. It is widely distributed, abundant and much cleaner than other hydrocarbon products. Somewhere at the intersection of money and climate are more than 600 million Africans who don't have access to electricity, 890 million Africans without methods for clean cooking, dozens of African nations that depend on hydrocarbons to fund just about every service they provide, and African industrial development that can't move forward unless it's powered by fossil fuels.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       It has been estimated that 500 billion people in the world are wearing clothes that were hand washed. This is due to a lack of cheap, affordable electricity. Hand washing clothes is back breaking, menial work, the bulk of which falls mostly on women and girls. This is a waste of human labor. Likewise, hand pumping and hand carrying water to homes and crops is another menial task that electricity eliminates. Until a country can free its' citizens of such labor, it can't possibly compete with more developed nations. Solar and wind power will not get a nation below the poverty level to where it needs to be. Why should people in Africa suffer because of the idealistic climate change policies that have led to green colonialism.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Foreign policies involving forcing solar energy on nation states failed in the 1970s, and it is failing now. For instance, Germany and much of the EU is in the middle of an energy crisis as their green energy solutions have failed again and again. Wind energy has also proven to be costly, uneconomical and bad for the local ecology. It is time to get real. That is why a sound energy policy is one that embraces natural gas and yes, hydrocarbons. A sound energy policy requires that nuclear power be a large part of that solution, as hydrocarbon-based energy sources are phased out.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Given all the other options currently available, nuclear is the one that is the cheapest, by far the cleanest (no carbon) and the most logical choice. Quietly, countries that often lead the way on the energy front are turning back to nuclear as the most viable solution to decrease carbon dioxide.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       ROBERT W. MALONE  MD MS