Solar and wind are not what we are led to believe. Climate think tanks don’t have a plan for dealing with CO2.
For United Nations “COP 28,” let’s rethink renewable energy, our economy and our civilization before we go too far down the road that leads to nowhere.
COP 28, is the 28th meeting of the Conference of Parties. According to the United Nations, “ … the COP is where the world comes together to agree on ways to address the climate crisis, such as limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, helping vulnerable communities adapt to the effects of climate change, and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.”
A brief intro to the author’s climate journey
In the last five years, in a sincere attempt to address climate change, I have produced 390 episodes of a local radio show called “The Climate Report.” I have read every version of a “Green New Deal” and commented on them extensively and approvingly on my radio show. However, more recently, I became extremely skeptical of the Green New Deal and the mainstream diagnosis of climate change. Therefore, I have become skeptical of the solutions or the cures that we are offered, by Big Green organizations such as the Sierra Club, as well as climate celebrities such as Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein.
Below, you will read some of my reasoning. But here is a summary …
We are told that excessive CO2 is the primary reason for climate change. I think CO2 is one cause of climate change. It may or may not be the primary cause.
I think lowering CO2 is probably important, but the mainstream luminaries and Big Green have not presented me with a plan for actually dealing with the problem. I don’t think solar power, wind power and hydro power will substantially lower our carbon footprint because 1) these technologies do not produce very much energy, 2) they each have a substantial carbon footprint and 3)
The mainstream climate movement minimizes the ecological impacts of solar, wind and hydro, as well as technological “solutions” such as electric vehicles.
We are asked to believe that we can switch to “100% clean and renewable energy” while the economy is still growing. I do not think this is possible, because a growing economy requires ever greater amounts of energy.
We are asked to believe we will be able to get off fossil fuels without changing the industries that consume fossil fuels. For example, defense consumes massive amounts of fossil fuel, as does industrial agriculture, as does our transportation system. We are asked to believe that we can just substitute “clean energy” for fossil fuels and carry on with business as usual. I don’t think this is possible because solar, wind, hydro and biofuels generate limited amounts of energy and each create their own special kinds of ecological devastation. For example, solar arrays, wind farms and biofuels all require deforestation.
For these reasons, I am very skeptical about whether any of these technologies will lead to reductions in fossil fuel usage. So I think we are being led down the proverbial garden path. We are being asked to support a course of action whose costs far outweigh the benefits, and will take valuable time. We don’t want to get ten years down the road only to find out that we have been listening to--and following--the wrong people.
With this as a background, I wrote the following “rant” for an online discussion group called “EcoRestoration Alliance.” The members of this group share my belief that the primary solutions to climate change are biological and ecological. We believe that climate change is a symptom of deeper problems, that it’s not just about greenhouse gases. But the members of the group do not all share my skepticism of solar and wind power. This rant is me pushing back and expressing my skepticism, starting with solar … and then asking some more fundamental questions about whether “civilization” as we know it is, in fact, sustainable or redeemable.
WHAT DOES SOLAR REALLY REQUIRE?
I think solar has valid applications off grid. For example, if you need electricity in a remote location, then solar seems ideal for that purpose.
But can solar power support industrial civilization? Can solar power produce abundant amounts of power, without a correspondingly large carbon footprint.
Where is the analysis that says solar power is low carbon? And how clear or persuasive are such analyses?
Is anyone taking into account the entire supply chain? When you look at how a solar panel is made, is it clean, green or renewable?
As food for thought, please watch this three minute video from the documentary Planet of the Humans.
This video portrays the energy intensity and the industrial processes required to make wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles.
Here is the Union of Concerned Scientists on How Solar Panels are Made.
https://blog.ucsusa.org/charlie-hoffs/how-are-solar-panels-made/
To make a solar panel, you have to refine silicon. To do this, you have to heat the silicon to 2200 degrees Celsius. You also need a worldwide supply chain that includes hundreds of materials that must be mined, refined, transported and assembled. Then the solar panels have to be installed and maintained, repaired and replaced.
Book recommendation: I strongly recommend the book Bright Green Lies by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith and Max Wilbert. To me it is the definitive critique of this techno-utopian vision we are all supposed to embrace.
Are we accounting for the “embodied pollution” or the “embodied carbon” in a finished solar panel? When I think of a solar panel, my mind goes straight to China, where the deforestation for the materials, in Baotou, for example, is the price we pay for feeling good about our energy usage.
And are we accounting for the embodied water pollution, or the embodied deforestation that occurs in the mining process alone? Are we accounting for the massive amounts of diesel fuel required to run the trucks that carry the materials from the mines? When mines generate water pollution and air pollution, are we accounting for the health impacts on the people or the wildlife?
WHAT IS THE TRUE COST OF WIND POWER?
Similarly, wind power has serious issues, such as 1) the killing of birds, 2) the loud sound that harms the hearing and nervous systems of people and animals and 3) the need to eliminate surrounding trees that otherwise slow down wind speeds.
Plus, solar and wind are intermittent. The sun doesn’t always shine and the wind does not always blow. So you have to store the energy in batteries.
Pumped hydro is a battery technology. It takes a lot of land and tends to kill fish.
Lithium-ion is the leading technology for cell phones, laptops and electric vehicles. It is also deployed in industrial solar arrays and residential batteries. Lithium-ion batteries require the mining of lithium and cobalt, which are responsible for massive amounts of ecological degradation including deforestation and water pollution.
The way we get cobalt currently utilizes slave labor in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the heart of Africa. Please see Cobalt Red, by Siddharth Kara.
Here is an interview with Siddharth Kara.
WHAT’S THE SOLUTION?
Am I suggesting that we just stay with fossil fuels? No, I’m suggesting that we start by getting our facts straight, stop lying to each other and stop believing the lies and half truths told by powerful commercial interests, Big Green organizations and climate celebrities, such as Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein.
And we need to question the need for--and the cost of--every major industrial activity. We need to ask what we are doing, and why? And then we need to eliminate activities that come at too high a cost.
Most industrial activities do not serve the needs of the people most affected. This includes most industrial agriculture, most so-called “defense” and most transportation.
DO WE NEED ALL THIS MILITARISM TO BE SAFE?
We (in the US) could reduce the “defense” budget by 80% without compromising our actual security. We have not fought a defensive war since 1945. Every single war or military action has been a war of aggression, a war of choice, a war for empire. I cannot find one single exception. It’s profoundly unethical, but the financial cost alone should give us pause.
On a per capita basis we spend over $3,000 a year for a lifetime. That’s $1 trillion per year, divided by the population.
LESS SPENDING MEANS LESS CARBON EMISSIONS
Keep in mind that every time we spend money, we are triggering fossil fuels and carbon. Therefore, if we could be happy and prosperous while spending less, that would be great for our carbon footprint.
THE NEEDLESS COSTS OF CAR OWNERSHIP
We spend over $12,000 per year to own and operate a car,
according to the New York Times. Wouldn’t it be a big relief to the family budget if a family with two cars could live with only one car? Our highways are clogged, and we don’t know how to relieve that congestion by providing mass transit. But we could start by providing reliable buses that are cheap and convenient. I suspect that we don’t because powerful interests such as car companies, oil companies and even airlines stand to lose if we had a functioning mass transit system.
But we are not doing this. We are moving to electric vehicles because they are profitable to the powerful people who call the shots. Let’s not forget that Congress and the presidency are almost perfectly controlled by money.
These same powerful interests tend to own and sponsor the media and therefore tend to drive the climate change conversation.
CHANGING THE CONVERSATION
The current conversation is all about carbon and energy. It’s all about: How do we change how we generate energy so that we might emit less carbon? Period. End of story. That’s all that matters. Anything else is an afterthought.
We are not even talking about climate, in any meaningful sense of the word, if we understand climate to be a local and regional phenomenon that is largely regulated by forests and plants and soil and ecosystems. Do these things not regulate climate by nurturing water cycles and preventing extremes of hot and cold, wet and dry, flooding and drought, wildfires and heat waves?
We have been seduced into a hyper-commercial “analysis” about how we solve problems and what problems we are even trying to solve. This hyper-commercial analysis is good for certain narrowly defined business interests. But represents more of the same industrial civilization which has always and only run roughshod over nature, and has not always been good for people or culture.
ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
But what are we trying to accomplish? What is ethical? What is right? We need to ask the right questions before we pretend to have the right answers. It doesn’t do any good to have all the right answers to all the wrong questions.
Is it right to sacrifice people and places for the sake of “civilization”? What are we trying to maintain and why?
For one thing, most politicians and business leaders and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are in love with economic growth. Ok. Fine.
But is it possible to grow the economy while diminishing our carbon footprint? I think not.
My understanding is that GDP (Gross Domestic Product, the measure of economic activity) is strictly correlated to energy usage, which is strictly correlated to carbon emissions, which is strictly correlated to total materials throughput, etc. By “total materials throughput” I’m talking about the total weight of goods that flow through the economy, such as agricultural products and the raw material from mining.
The idea is that every time we spend a dollar, we are triggering a certain amount of energy, a certain amount of carbon, and a certain amount of total materials throughput.
So any “solutions” that require massive amounts of spending are not solutions at all.
I get this from Simon Michaux and Thomas Murphy, as well as from the book Bright Green Lies.
Here is my interview with Dr. Thomas Murphy.
Here is my interview with Dr. Simon Michaux.
Of course, the whole idea behind solar and wind is that they are supposed to generate energy without generating carbon emissions. But any “decoupling” of energy production from carbon emissions is theoretical, speculative and unproven. When GDP goes up, so does energy. When GDP and energy go up, so do carbon emissions.
The authors of Bright Green Lies, in Chapter 3, talk about how carbon emissions correlate with economic growth, despite claims to the contrary, such as when the New York Times reported that Germany grew its economy while lowering emissions--but only due to an unusually mild winter, which reduced the need for heating fuel.
ARE SOLAR AND WIND LOW CARBON?
But let’s assume for the sake of discussion that solar and wind are both 1) low carbon and 2) less expensive than their fossil fuel alternatives. If I reduce my utility bill by half, I’ll just take that money and spend it on something else, maybe consumer electronics or plane tickets. In either case, I’m buying something that has its own carbon footprint.
DO NEW ENERGY SOURCES REDUCE THE OLD ONES?
Historically, is there a precedent for the idea that new energy sources diminish the use of old energy sources? I think not. I’m told that when coal power came along, whaling for whale oil actually increased, because the ships could travel faster and further, both to kill the whales and deliver the whale oil to new markets. I’m told that the advent of coal did not diminish the amount of deforestation or the amount of wood burned for fuel.
And yet, we are supposed to assume that when we generate a lot more energy via wind and solar, we will somehow use less coal and less oil. But has coal usage diminished in recent years? Or does it always increase with GDP? And has oil usage diminished, or does it continue to rise with GDP? What is the scenario, even hypothetically, whereby coal and oil will diminish with the increase of solar and wind energy?
WHAT’S THE SOLUTION?
So, Hart, what’s the solution? I don’t have all the answers, but the least we can do is to stop kidding one another.
Look around you. How much of the built environment is really necessary to live a rewarding life? Are we freer because of our cars or our paved roads? In some ways, yes. But in many ways, we are slaves to these innovations, because we have to work overtime to pay for them.
I recommend the book Civilized To Death by Christopher Ryan. At least read the first chapter, to begin rethinking our most cherished—and dubious—beliefs about ourselves and our “civilization.”
For one thing, civilization is not culture. We could have a rich culture without all of this built environment and massive infrastructure. We spend our time, our money and our ENERGY maintaining this dubious built environment and infrastructure.
But for what? Because it’s “normal”?
WHAT IS NORMAL?
“Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to a job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.”
—Ellen Goodman
Is this “progress”? If we the people were empowered to define progress, how much of this would we really want or need? Could we do without half of this, if that meant we had to work half as much and were able to pursue our true interests?
“Normal” is having to choose between your passions and your economic stability and well being. If we weren’t spending needlessly on so-called defense and transportation, we could live on less and spend less. This matters because each dollar we spend triggers a corresponding amount of energy and carbon.
WHAT IS “CIVILIZATION”?
Civilization is what? Contrary to the prevailing self-serving definition, “civilization” is not culture. And civilization is not “progress.”
According to Derrick Jensen, civilization (from the Latin “civis,” meaning “city”) is a way of life characterized by the growth of cities which--by their nature--require the extraction and import of resources from “elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere” are the places where other people live--or did live before they were driven off their land. Extracting resources from “elsewhere” means polluting waterways and removing forests. Extracting resources means driving people off their land, often at gunpoint.
Many people are driven off by economic manipulation, such as how the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization, have caused the unemployment of millions of Mexican farmers, just as one example. This is part of an import-export economy that benefits elites at the detriment of average people and creates the “need” for massive amounts of transoceanic shipping. How much carbon does it take to manufacture those ships? How many fish die because of the bunker fuel that is so dirty it cannot be used anywhere on or near land?
So when we think we need solar to maintain “civilization,” what are we really doing? And when we think we need EVs to maintain our way of life, what are we doing, really?
Is this feasible, for one thing. Do “we” have the resources for it, globally? This is debatable, according to Simon Michaux.
And if “we” have the resources globally, how much damage can we justify to people, communities, cultures, forests, farmland and waterways?
I suggest we stop yielding so much ground to the people who are not even asking these questions, let alone formulating viable answers.
You write, “We are told that excessive CO2 is the primary reason for climate change. I think CO2 is one cause of climate change. It may or may not be the primary cause.” What are you trying to say here?? Do you think anthropogenic GHGs are the primary cause of warming? If not, what do you think is causing the warming?
I think I totally agree with you!