Is the Emphasis on “Green Technology” Misplaced?

Surviving Earth

Directed by Peter Charles Downey (2014)

Film Review

This Australian documentary on climate change, like Michael Moore’s Planet of the Humans places heavy emphasis on “stabilizing” global population. The methods it advocates include free contraception for all women who need it and increased education about the benefits of family planning.

The film also dispels the myth that renewable energy (ie a well-integrated combination of concentrated solar thermal, wind, PV solar, and bioenergy) is too intermittent to cover periods of peak energy demand. Now that renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels, this is also the main argument fossil fuel lobbyists use against 100% conversion to renewables.

Downey also calls for a significant reduction in energy consumption by the industrial North – for two main reasons. The first relates to the extreme resource intensity required for some green technologies, such as electric vehicles (EVs). As of 2014, there were one billions cars globally. There isn’t enough lithium on the planet for one billion EV batteries, to say nothing of the massive fossil fuel expenditure involved in the manufacture of EVs.

His second argument relates to the declining energy return on investment (EROI) with renewables (and unconventional fossil fuel sources such as fracked gas and oil and tar sands). EROI is defined as the amount of energy you produce for each unit of energy you expending in mining and production. Modern EROIs have steadily declined since a high in 1900 of 100 units per each unit expended (for oil).

Current EROIs summarized below

• Wind 1:25
• Saudi oil 1:12
• Fracked gas 1:10
• Fracked oil 1:5
• PV solar 1:5
• Coal 1:5
• Tar sands 1:2
• Biofuel 1:1

According to Downey, a more realistic approach to reducing carbon emissions combines 1) intelligent urban design that moves services closer to residents homes, enabling them to meet most of their needs by bicycle or on foot and 2) free and convenient public transport for long trips.

He blames the steady decline in EROI for the failure of global growth to recover after the 2008 economic collapse. The Club of Rome’s 1973 Limits to Growth predicted economic growth would totally collapse around 2019-2020. A totally new phenomenon in civilized society, economic growth began around 1800 with intensive fossil fuel use. Growth will continue to decline as the EROI of available fuels declines. Eventually it will reach 1:1, and we will resume our reliance on human and animal muscle power.

Downey predicts the growing cost of energy (resulting from declining EROI) will drastically increase the cost of food – to the point local communities will again be forced to be food self-sufficient

 

The Corporatization of the Climate Movement

The Planet of the Humans

Directed by Jeff Gibbs (2020)

Executive Producer Michael Moore

Film Review

This very alarming film mainly (released on Earth Day on Michael Moore’s YouTube channel) concerns the capture of the climate movement by Wall Street interests. It places special emphasis on environmental NGOs, like Serra Club, 350.org, and the Nature Conservancy, which are increasingly partnering with Wall Street banks and corporations to promote technological solutions (such as solar panels, wind turbines, concentrated solar mirrors, and large scale biomass and biofuel production). These technologies are immensely profitable for corporations, but as director Jeff Gibbs demonstrates, are unsustainable in the long term without addressing population growth and massive overconsumption in the industrial North.

The film begins by closely examining, in turn, each of these heavily promoted renewable technologies. For me, the issues raised about solar photovoltaic and wind turbine technology, both strongly embraced by climate activists, are the most concerning. Gibbs reminds us that all solar panels and turbines have a fairly short lifespan (20 year), which is most concerning in light of the large environmental and carbon footprint they leave during mining and manufacture of the raw materials they consume. The steel and cement required for wind turbines have a sizeable carbon footprint in themselves, and the mining (in third world countries) of cobalt, lithium, nickel, tin, and rare earth minerals used in solar batteries and electric vehicles produces substantial quantities of uranium, radon, and other radioactive isotopes as waste products. The mining process also produces a significant quantity of sulfur hexafluoride, a  greenhouse gas 23,000 times more potent than CO2.

Gibbs ends by examining specific ties between environmental NGOs and Wall Street players:

Sierra Club

• received millions in donations from the world’s leading timber company for their support of biomass energy (ie clearing of native forests to produce wood chips).
• received millions in donations from Michael Bloomberg to replace coal fired power plants with those powered by (equally polluting) natural gas.
• major backer of Green Century Mutual Funds, which are 1% invested in solar and wind technology and 99% invested in oil, gas, tar sands, and unsustainably produced biofuels.
• sell solar panels and electric vehicles from their website.
• is biggest international investor in Viva, the biggest corporate destroyer of native forests.

Bill McKibben and 350.org

• assisted Goldman Sachs in raising capital for a Brazilian project to increase sugar cane production for ethanol (increasing Amazon deforestation and displacing indigenous populations).

Al Gore

• co-founder of Generation Investment Management, a company specializing in biomass and biofuels production (this was prior to the 2005 release of his film An Inconvenient Truth).
• co-founder of a multibillion dollar sustainability investment fund based in the Cayman Islands.

Koch Brothers

• largest corporate recipient of federal biomass subsidies.

The second video is a Q&A hosted by Michael Moore (executive producer), Jeff Gibbs (director), and Ozzie Zehner (producer) on April 23rd.

 

 

Is Donald Trump Real or Did the Corporate Media Create Him?

While I’m no fan of Trump (I already voted by absentee ballot – for Jill Stein), I find it more than a little alarming that this speech – which is circulating on Facebook – is nothing like the Donald Trump we see in the corporate media:

I have pretty much ignored all the US election coverage, but I was also pretty intrigued by this analysis by Michael Moore on the appeal of Donald Trump for the white working class – especially in what he calls the “Brexit” state (Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and other states where the manufacturing industry has virtually collapsed). He calls a vote for Donald Trump the biggest “fuck you” vote in human history.

Let’s All Move to Michigan, Shall We?

Exported from Michigan

Jon Vander Pol (2014)

Film Review

Exported from Michigan is a slick rah-rah promotional film about the glories of doing business in the state of Michigan. Even though it’s an obvious propaganda piece, it’s always interesting to track the key messages the mainstream media is trying to foist on us. The main message I see this film promoting is that society (ie government and corporations) no longer have an obligation to guarantee full employment. It’s up to the 20-30% of American young people who are unemployed to solve the problem themselves by becoming self-employed entrepreneurs.

Despite the film’s irritating lack of balance, I was gratified to see its heavy emphasis on local economies, civic engagement and community building. I’m in total agreement that local businesses are the key to a thriving economy – states tried to increase employment with tax breaks for multinational corporations learned from bitter experience corporations have no loyalty to the welfare of local communities.

The filmmakers argue that Michigan began sliding into recession long before the 2008 economic crisis, owing to a steady exodus of the big three automakers that began in the 1970s. Michael Moore’s 1989 film Roger and Me focuses on the economic devastation Flint Michigan experienced after GM closed their auto plant and laid off 30,000 workers.

Among the film’s highlights are the urban agriculture movement in Detroit, where one-third of the land is abandoned; the craft beer movement, involving 140 microbreweries across the state and employing 37,000 people; a proliferation local art fairs and music festivals aimed at building community awareness and civic engagement, high tech manufacturing start-us that focus on robots and wind and solar technology and the development of a specialized medical research center in Grand Rapids. In all these endeavors, there’s a strong expectation that new physical plants will be sustainably constructed and adhere to triple bottom line principles.*

The decision to showcase the Big 3 auto companies, which still employ one out of seven Michigan workers, mystified me. A GM executive talks about the failure to innovate and “complacency” over consumer needs that led to their bankruptcy and bailout in 2008. He doesn’t mention the 30 million vehicles GM recalled in February 2014 due to faulty ignition features that caused cars to catch fire – nor that GM knew about the fault for a decade before issuing the recall.

Although there’s brief mention of the Detroit seniors who’ve had their pensions cut as the city’s 2013 bankruptcy, the film fails to examine the tragic effect of these cuts on their lives. There’s also no mention of the tens of thousands of Detroit residents who’ve experienced water shutoffs nor the city’s condemnation by UN human rights.

View the film free at Exported from Michigan

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*Triple bottom line principles place people and planet before profit.