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The document criticizes common views around renewable energy and climate change solutions. It argues that proposed solutions prioritize continuing industrial civilization and the global economic system over protecting the natural world. While renewable technologies may emit less carbon than fossil fuels, they still power the industrial economy and cause environmental damage through mining, habitat destruction, and other harms. True solutions would require questioning the underlying economic system rather than trying to "save civilization" through approaches that extend its destructive impacts.
The document criticizes common views around renewable energy and climate change solutions. It argues that proposed solutions prioritize continuing industrial civilization and the global economic system over protecting the natural world. While renewable technologies may emit less carbon than fossil fuels, they still power the industrial economy and cause environmental damage through mining, habitat destruction, and other harms. True solutions would require questioning the underlying economic system rather than trying to "save civilization" through approaches that extend its destructive impacts.
The document criticizes common views around renewable energy and climate change solutions. It argues that proposed solutions prioritize continuing industrial civilization and the global economic system over protecting the natural world. While renewable technologies may emit less carbon than fossil fuels, they still power the industrial economy and cause environmental damage through mining, habitat destruction, and other harms. True solutions would require questioning the underlying economic system rather than trying to "save civilization" through approaches that extend its destructive impacts.
Renewable Energy Its even harder to make people understand some- thing when their whole way of life depends on The way we think about saving our planet is them not understanding it. entirely wrong. So we lie to ourselves. Concerning global warm- -Derrick Jensen ing, the Trump types lie by simply denying its tak- ing place. From ecocide to genocide to individual This culture will not act to stop or significantly assaults, this is nearly always the first line of de- slow global warming. This culture will sacrifice fense for perpetrators of all atrocities: What you {read: kill} the planet rather than question the see happening isnt happening. socioeconomic system that is killing our only home. How do we know that? Well, here are a few Climate activists perpetrate a similar lie, in that good reasons. they seem to pretend the destruction caused by Lets start with Donald Trump. No, even though the solar, wind, hydro, and biomass industries the president of the United States thinks climate doesnt exist. Or that somehow the harm caused change is a hoax, he and his hot air his policies by them is a sacrifice that must be made to serve are not by themselves sufficient to kill the planet. the greater good. But the sacrifice is, as always, made by the planet, and the greater good is that More significant is that his position on global the industrial economy gets more energy. Thats warming is representative of his contempt for the not a good deal for the (for now) living planet. natural world. And even more significant than this Even leaving aside the fact that the electricity is that his contempt for the natural world is repre- generated by renewables is used to power the sentative of the attitudes of much of this culture. industrial economy, in other words to further the He received almost 62 million votes, meaning murder of the planet, the wind/solar/hydro/ Trump is far from alone in what he feels about the biomass solutions are in themselves harmful. real world. Its not just Trump and the 62 million Americans who voted for him who value the eco- For example, wind/solar require the mining of rare nomic system more than they value the real world. earths. All mining is environmentally devastating, The same is true for Democrats, Republicans, po- but rare earths mining is especially so. Rare earths litical leaders around the world, mainstream jour- mining and refining has devastated, for example, nalists and nearly all climate change activists. the area around Baotou, China. As The Guardian They all make very clear their priorities each and wrote; From the air it looks like a huge lake, fed every day. by many tributaries, but on the ground it turns out Europe. If you guessed 99% or less, up your Dont believe me? Then ask yourself: What do all to be a murky expanse of water, in which no fish or guess and try again: yes, it would be 100%. Most of their so-called solutions to global warming have algae can survive. The shore is coated with a black of these trees from the US are burned as pellets in in common? The answer is all of their solutions crust, so thick you can walk on it. Into this huge, the UK. And its not just the UK that deforests prioritize this way of life -industrialism, industrial 10 sq km tailings pond nearby factories discharge other countries to serve industry. civilization, capitalism, colonialism- over the water loaded with chemicals used to process the One pro-industry researcher blandly states, As needs of the natural world. All of their solutions 17 most sought after minerals in the world, collec- North West European wood resources are not suf- accept this way of life as a givenas what must tively known as rare earths. The soil in the region ficient for this sudden demand, the region relies be preserved at all costsand presume that the has also been toxified. on imports from abroad. And of course these natural world must conform to the demands and Likewise, no matter how green and renewable countries deforest their own territory as well: Al- harmful effects of this culture. So in real terms, so many climate activists, politicians, and envi- most half of Germanys timber production is sim- whatever effort thats going into stopping the harm ronmentalists claim dams are, it should be obvi- ply cutting down trees, pulping them, drying them from global warming is in all truth attempting to ous that dams kill rivers. They kill riparian zones into pellets, and burning them. stop the harm to the economy, not the planet. they inundate. They deprive rivers above dams of nutrients from anadromous fish. They deprive Theyre quite explicit about this. Read their own words. They call this The Race to Save Civiliza- floodplains below of nutrients that flow with rivers. They deprive beaches of sediment. They destroy And this is how they propose saving the tion. or Providing a Plan to Save Civilization. Or habitat of fish and others who live in flowing rivers, Mobilizing to Save Civilization. not in slow-moving, warmer reservoirs. This brings us to another way we know we would rather kill the planet than end this way of life. Too much environmentalism- and especially climate Thats a hell of a PR/marketing coup. And Im not blaming individual protestors. Theyre not the world or, problem. The problem is that this is what capital- activism has by now been turned into a de facto lobbying arm for an industrial sector. Its a pretty ism does. And the real problem is that solar and hydro help industry, not the real world. Do desert more accurately, neat trick on the part of capitalism and capitalists: to turn very real concern over global warming into tortoises need solar-electricity-generation facilities built on what used to be their homes? Do coho continuing to power a mass movement, then use this mass movement to advance the aims of specific sectors of the in- dustrial capitalist economy. salmon need dams built on the rivers that used to be their homes? How about Mekong catfish? the industrial econ- To be clear, wild naturefrom desert bighorn If you ask many of the protesters within this mass movement why theyre protesting, they may tell sheep to Michigan monkey flowers to Johnsons seagrassdoesnt benefi in the slightest from so- omy, as the living you theyre trying to save the planet. But if you ask them what are their demands, they may re- called alternative energies. Sure, in some cases these alternative energies emit less carbon than planet who is our only spond that they want additional subsidies for the industrial solar, wind, hydro, and biomass sectors. their oil and gas counterparts, but they still emit more carbon than if no facility were built, and they home enters death Valuing this way of life over life on the planet destroy more habitat than if none were built. causes its advocates to tell lies, to themselves and to others. The first lie is that this way of life This is part of what I mean when I say that the so- lutions are meant to protectin this case, power- spasms. isnt inherently destructive. At this stage in the the economy rather than to protect wild nature. unraveling of life on this planet I shouldnt have to -Derrick Jensen support this statement. We need merely look And then theres biomass around. another darling of the renewable The last thing the world needs is more industrial and green climate activists. energy generation, energy that will be used to do Biomass is just a groovy way of what the industrial economy doesconvert the living to the dead: living forests to two-by-fours, saying burning things. What it living mountains into component minerals. means in practice is that forests in There is no free lunch. Actions have conse- the United States, Canada, South quences, and when you steal from others, the Africa, Germany, Sweden, Czech others no longer have what you stole from them. This is as true when this theft is from nonhumans Republic, Norway, Russia, Belarus, as it is when its from humans. the Ukraine and many other But, as Upton Sinclair said, Its hard to make a countries are being felled to feed man understand something when his job depends on him not understanding it. stand something Europes demand for biofuels. when their whole way of life depends on them not There are dozens of huge pulp mills just in the understanding it. southeastern United States. Guess what percent- age of the biofuels from these are exported to