Your thorough write-up completely lacks a broader vision for grand analysis. I read another lengthy statement about how awful pesticides are and what damage they are known to cause humans who ingest them; in the end, the author tells readers we all ought rinse our produce to avoid its poisoning effect. Where the pesticides go from there, or why they are produced at all, or (most importantly) how we can stop their creation are never addressed in all his many words, so focused was he on telling us to wash away these heinous chemicals. Similarly, you’re so honed-in to defending renewable energy’s efficiency and affordability as the means of ending climate change that you’re not seeing the forest for all its wall of trees.
It is not merely that technologies are burning polluting fuels and fouling the atmosphere with carbon dioxide, nor that other technologies are amplifying a simple virus mutation into a global pandemic; technology always comes to exist in exchange for a sacrifice of wild Nature, and it always has unforeseen consequences which inevitably impinge upon naturally-occurring freedoms for humans and non-humans. As you note, the film’s closing scenes of orangutan-habitat destruction owes not to the creation of renewable-power sources but to the supply of Civilization-manufactured foods for feeding all the people in mass-society. Thus it is one atrocity which will not be remedied by the transition to ‘green energy’ but solely through a dramatic decline in the demand and capacity for civilized-manufactured foods, which will come only by the collapse of industrial civilization.
Instead, pacification is all that we get from measures to ‘polish-away the blemishes’. Consider the five economist-suggested* ways of assessing growth and success in hopes of impeding rampant consumption, each undeniably vague: good jobs, well-being, environment, fairness, and health all can be judged subjectively as met or unmet, and are therefore useless. For example, “good jobs” might mean intrinsically-valued labors, or enjoyable work — but it certainly doesn’t mean unpaid or low-paid work. So what will people do with their earnings from “good jobs” if not buy more stuff, paying taxes and profits to the purveyors of goods and services? How much of that can be done without negative ecological impact? Even “environment” does not get an objective assessment by all, as many will see half of the world’s land being under managed cultivation as a no problem so long as what is cultivated are crops meant to feed humans directly, rather than feeding the animals that humans would later eat (blindly claimed as “more efficient” — see Note 1). But of course in 2020 we can see that half of the inhabitable Earth being under Civilized control — its natural water flows diverted, topsoil eroded, depleted of nutrients and creating algal blooms with fertilizer runoff — will produce ecological disaster over the long-term (if not in the short-term), regardless of which desired foods the process yields.
You write, “Another core argument of the film left unexplored is overpopulation. …The key is to make education of girls, empowerment of women, and reproductive health a priority.” This kind of generalized prescription reminds me of Naomi Klein’s penchant for things easy to say, things that sound fine and good, but which practically amount to nothing. The overpopulation problem and routes to solving it ought to be discussed for the sake of public understanding, but if this film had done so it would have been even more maligned, with slanderous dismissals of eugenics or “ecofascism” (both of which depend upon the continued availability of technology), or its projected “White supremacy,” or whatever other mud detractors could sling. Even if rationality prevailed over Leftist impulses to attack the movie for raising the issue of civilized humans overpopulating Earth, that subject deserves its own documentary-length exploration; few people would watch a 220-minute documentary.
The legal reviews required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) satisfy only the reader who believes that nothing bad has ever occurred at any of the places given NEPA approval. And can you imagine that the NEPA would find that the majority of power plants are detrimental to the local environs and must be shuttered? Can you imagine the nation’s electricity generating being ended to save the areas where the power plants are located? No chance: the power must come, consequences be damned. Moreover, the laws today can (and do) change tomorrow. Just a few months ago there was an outcry about this President nullifying EPA regulations that were implemented under the last President. Clearly we can’t afford to “save” humanity and all the rest of Nature with reversible legal policies. Any policy which restricts specific technological means will eventually break under the push of technology overall; for its permanent disuse, it has to be removed from existence.
Preferable to Project Drawdown’s 100 “solutions” is the one solution which works, even if it isn’t ideal. Think about the military use of UAVs (drones) to attack enemy personnel, and how (for several reasons) the commanders do not try to kill all assembled enemies with single shots from above to every individual foe, but instead seek to kill them all (or at least many) with far fewer drops, or even one lone release, of ordnance. The bombs are far more expensive than bullets, but their goal — if we suspend a valid cynicism, briefly — is not to eventually eliminate the entirety of the enemy forces but to rapidly eliminate enough that the opponent loses willpower or ability and ceases to fight.
Nobody who cares for the future of the planet, as you clearly do, wants to hit 85 of those goals quickly only to watch stagnation or fatigue or infighting or distraction set in on Goal 86 and see the end-goal unachieved quickly enough to save Earth from the doom of industrial pollution. Obviously, 85 (or 95, or 99) wins and the ultimate loss is nothing to strive for. So let’s pursue one ultimate goal, even if it doesn’t deliver as quickly as might the first 17 or so of the Project Drawdown objectives. That goal should be the forced collapse of the worldwide industrial-technological system (industrial civilization) which creates or (at the very least) exacerbates all of the problems plaguing us in the created ‘Anthropocene’ epoch. It is the only single goal which will adequately resolve our dilemma.
Project Drawdown’s calculation of 85.42 gigatons of CO2 reduction (due to “family planning” programs and further “educating girls”) sounds good, but as a projection it is dubious, beyond calculating errors: to be accurate they have to correctly forecast trends and actions for a world of 8B people and over 200 nations, with some unknown number of private entities (corporations, armed groups vying for power, domestic demographic lobbies and ‘special interest’/civic groups, and NGOs), topped by the unpredictability of Nature. Aren’t you skeptical of anyone’s ability to do that? But granting that even 100 gigatons of CO2 would be sequestered by the means suggested, how do we accomplish ‘family planning’ and ‘educating girls’ in a way that has not been done already? If it hasn’t worked yet, what can be done differently to make it work now? What if the natural biological imperative to pair-up and reproduce is not sufficiently altered by “educating girls” and offering contraceptives, would we then resort to other more (presently) undesirable measures? If we pretend that such could be perceived as being fairly administered, and even if overt means like punishments or breeding licenses were not employed, more subtle “low-intrusion” methods such as sterilizing agents in municipal waters or DNA-editing in-utero or at birth would be appalling outcomes for humanity — outrages to human freedom, autonomy, dignity, and happiness. If we are in this mess and the only way forward is to enable a managerial class with the technological power to undertake such measures, perhaps we ought not go forward but turn around from the mad pursuit of Progress.
Ending the techno-industrial system would take the modern agricultural system with it — thereby mostly re-wilding the biosphere and freeing most of an imprisoned Nature. This will reduce a negative situation (the unsustainably high civilized population) while also improving a dire situation (the decline of biodiversity).† To sustain oneself on fresh forage and local wild game is the healthiest diet we can have, and the mental dexterity and physical exertion required easily surpasses the routine, apportioned exercising performed at any workout warehouse, and without any monthly membership fee. One can look to numerous beneficial facets of the nomadic forager-hunter lifestyle in contrast to the detriment of sedentary city-dwelling, even in the earliest days of agrarian culture. While clans living in Nature are indeed subject to the caprices of “the gods” or the chance (mis)fortunes of natural weather (and simple bad luck) they are not subjected to market fluctuations depriving them of a meal, nor do they suffer from faraway chain-of-supply disruptions, as we in Civilization are burdened with. With ‘only’ 10,000–12,000 years of full-time agriculture delivering constant food surplus, we’ve managed to transform the Earth. Hasn’t it been long enough, now? Don’t we have 20/20 hindsight to see that it isn’t working? Isn’t it obvious that for all our years of constantly feeding people we keep generating more people, despite all the best intentions and efforts of family planning programs and ‘educating women’? These things do not work, or at least not sufficiently to turn the tide quickly enough in the face of our biological programming to breed. Do we want to undertake yet another intervention to humanity’s nature and set about altering that ancient, deeply-embedded natural inclination rather than end the much newer means by which we produce food surpluses to yield global population growth?
The lack of food for humans in any region is just one of the realities of life on Earth. It isn’t unfair or unjust when there is a drought, or when the large game animals move, and a tribe no longer has food in that area and has to migrate. Nor is it a tragedy or insufferable cruelty when these conditions don’t allow for menstruation or offspring-conception or infant-nursing. It is simply the law of the land, something which all other creatures experience when being provided-for by Nature but also being limited by it. To live this way, accepting the good and also the bad, would be humanity living among and with Nature, not exceptional, nor beyond its/Her ways of operating.
When you note that coal plants are closing, that is a good thing (and I accept it is true). But it gives the false impression that Appalachian or Australian or Colombian coal will no longer be torn from our Earth and burned elsewhere; in fact, it’s being sent to China. It is implausible that known coal or gas or oil deposits would be forever left unexploited by techno-industrial society; if Germany or even all of Europe “go renewable”, that will only mean more hydrocarbons available for China or India or whomever gets to them. So renewables add a (CO2 non-emitting) source for electrical power rather than replace any existing fuels. While there is a hope or a theory or a prediction that wind- and solar-generated energy will supplant the dirty fuels presently used most, there is no guarantee of this, and if it were to happen it would be contrary to all history of industrial fuels: the access to crude oil (and later refined diesel) did not end the usage of coal, just as the use of oil did not prevent the development of uses for and extraction of natural gas. So, in effect, not only has techno-industrial society sought out and laid claim to all available coal, oil, and natural gas accessible from the planet’s surface, but now it wants to take the sunlight which lands on the surface and the wind which flows over it, too? Was it forgotten that evolved organisms currently utilize the sunlight which falls on them, or do these non-humans not matter if consideration of them limits Civilization staying electrified? Has electricity demand ever diminished in all the time of transition between different fuels? Of course not.
“It seems amazing that those who advocate energy conservation haven’t noticed what happens: As soon as some energy is freed up by conservation, the technological world-system gobbles it up and demands more. …the system always expands rapidly until it is using all available energy, and then it demands still more. …until it reaches a limit imposed by an insufficiency of resources, and then it tries to push beyond that limit regardless of consequences.”
— Ted Kaczynski, Anti-Tech Revolution (2016)
That ‘renewables’ are becoming cheaper and renewable-powered machines more efficient sounds fine or good, but the only real limit on consumption is imposed by price. If solar energy is generated for at least one-third of every day, and wind the same, and it’s incredibly cheap, its use will inevitably be maximized, not only by individuals leaving lights or A/C running but also with flying and driving all around the planet. The problems of this inhuman technological movement and the land-contouring it brings (and largely requires) are far beyond its levels of CO2 released now, but the prevailing thought would be “Well it’s not polluting” or “But it’s not costing us”, or “At least it’s not fossil-fuel powered”. And that forgets all the horrible things that industry and government would do with limitless, non-polluting electrical energy.
Residential and individuals’ uses of electricity are incidental to power plants’ generation of it; industrial demand exceeds residential by magnitudes, and is in fact the reason power plants are operated. If renewables can actually provide for all present residential use, the demand will not cease at this present level; what will fuel industrial power? Hydrocarbons while they are available, but further development and deployment of the renewable-energy technologies would go on, because the addicted are never sated. Even if it is ‘only’ more solar panels and windmills rather than coal, gas, or oil, we would be interrupting the natural flow and fall of wind and sunlight upon our Earth, a characteristic of life here conservatively estimated at billions of years old. Is that audacious, hubristic entitlement of Civilization not shameful, and potentially (if not probably or obviously) perilous?
Some critics of the documentary have done far worse than you, falsely claiming that the film advocates fossil fuels, while others bemoan that it gives the fossil-fuels industry ‘ammunition’. But we are not “on the wrong side” or losing our ethics if we agree with Exxon that 2+2=4, such are truths to be recognized by all parties; so, citing some promotion of the film by fossil-fuel loyalists is simply casting the shadow of a boogeyman in order to darken an agreement between opponents. If we scratch the surface of why the hydrocarbons industry might advance this film which critiques ‘green energy’, we see how their position actually aligns with the criticism of the documentary by prominent professional ‘green leaders’. At best, the environmentalists reveal that they agree with the point being made by the Oil, Coal, & Gas people who would like to discredit ‘renewables’, for the lobbyists are saying, “If solar and wind won’t do any better, you might as well stick with what you’ve got — you certainly don’t want to give up electricity!” This is precisely what liberals like Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein and Josh Fox and Ketan Joshi are all worried about,‡ that the general public will so value the maddening and addictive technological garbage of the modern era that they will simply settle for baking the planet to death. But not only do humans not need any of the electrified stuff we daily engage with, it actually worsens our lives, dividing us from connecting with Nature and even other people, physically, face-to-face, in-person (see Note 2). For 200,000 years humans just like us lived in small groups, deeply connected to their clans, relying upon and aiding their fellows, competing against outsiders (thus giving us a balance of allies and enemies, security and threat, offense and defense).** Yet, only 220 years after the first use of electric power, most people who think themselves environmentalists are now debating whether the use of windmills or solar panels can suffice for providing enough electricity (an unnecessary extravagance) to make it worthwhile to stop using fossil fuels and thereby avoid destroying our only lifeboat in the sea of the entire Milky Way And when the insanity of that is challenged, when “Planet of the Humans” says we need to pull the needle out and clean up, get sober and face reality, the reaction is to shout down the messenger.
Think about what would be done with infinite electricity, based on what has been and is now being done already. We need to have CO2-free electricity so that more pornography can be viewed, so that video games don’t fade away, so that cyber-bullying and child porn can proliferate against all controls attempted? If this stuff is raising our ‘standard of living’, why do we have so many unhappy people who kill themselves (and, increasingly, others before themselves)? The 40K annual suicides in America are surely only a fraction of all the people miserably unsatisfied by life in fast-paced unnatural techno-industrial civilization who don’t attempt to end their lives; how many more are medicated into accepting their discontentment? When will we reclaim our dignity, this species that survived for at least a couple hundred millennia but is now unable to cope with conditions, while also blind or hopeless to altering them? People existing in Nature don’t get miserable and seek to end their lives. That is a unique attribute found among the civilized. Facing challenges and working diligently to overcome adversities is rewarding and builds confidence, just as it provides its own intrinsic value to people. Civilization is what the renowned Desmond Morris referred to as “The Human Zoo” with the title of his 1969 book.
Simply imagine for a minute, eating only the foods our species is adapted to, which you (or a close friend who lives among you) have obtained, and being with your children; imagine children of all ages playing together, each of them acquiring every skill and material item they need to live well, simply from being in the suitable natural environs to which they are adapted, and being around their parents and emulating them; imagine getting intimately acquainted with your bioregion, not being crowded like industrial-agriculture’s chickens in a growing-warehouse. Imagine being free from the psychological toll of potential annihilation via nuclear conflict, being free of worries over the forecast of (induced) sea-level rise, or not suffering a tech-facilitated viral contagion greatly worsened by heavily-polluted air (not merely the ‘greenhouse gases’). Imagine shedding the psyche’s burden of multiple existential crises because we stop the worsening potentials of Technology, which grows more autonomous by the day due to the vile works of lauded scientists and technicians.
And for being milquetoast and servile to the technological system, Bill McKibben gets to soak up the limelight and be heralded as an environmentalist leader. He gets published in Rolling Stone (for one), where he has a platform to extoll the talking points of the Green Energy industry for which he volunteers, in addition to dismissing valid criticisms. Were he to take a more oppositional, or boldly confrontational position against the menace of further technological progress, he would be marginalized and replaced by another figurehead for false hopes of a techno-salvation to come. McKibben — who on May 6th, 2020 declared that one of rural America’s biggest problems is… (wait for it…) a lack of consistent and reliable WiFi signals — measures quite poorly against even the timid academic-philosopher class who at least named the enemy as Technology itself. Heidegger, Ellul, Mumford, Neil Postman, Chellis Glendinning; while none of them were brave enough to unequivocally state that only a revolutionary movement will be able to depose techno-industrial civilization and free all the inhabitants of Earth from the controls imposed by Technology, at the very least they recognized the primary source of the problem.
Rather than putting hopes and prayers into some new technology which might deliver the ‘Diet Coke’ fix for technoindustrial society — that is, all the same “great” benefits with none of the currently-known downsides — we need only hopeful optimism that our commitment and effort can make successful a revolution against the technological system. Indeed, while many a Leftist is inherently a pessimist, defeated before he even starts, truly the only reason that revolution seems not to be possible is that it is not thought to be possible. When people stop awaiting a savior (whether man or machine) and begin to see and believe that revolution can indeed be undertaken and achieved, then in reality it can be.
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* Whether from the New Economics Foundation, to whom you credit them, or the World Economic Forum, where they appear and to which your hyperlink directs.
Note 1. This is so commonly-thought and accepted that citations abound. For just a few examples:
· “…plant-based replacements for each of the major animal categories in the United States (beef, pork, dairy, poultry, and eggs) can produce twofold to 20-fold more nutritionally similar food per unit cropland. Replacing all animal-based items with plant-based replacement diets can add enough food to feed 350 million additional people, more than the expected benefits of eliminating all supply chain food loss.”
from “The opportunity cost of animal based diets exceeds all food losses” by A. Shepon, G. Eshel, E. Noor, R. Milo, 04/10/18.
This study touts how “we” can feed 350M more people if livestock were not raised by the agricultural society; if molecules of diverse matter are reconstituted to form 350 million more humans than currently exist, is that better or worse for biodiversity? And what will prevent those new 350M humans who are newly being fed from reproducing and becoming 700M humans?
· “If we humans ate the plant crops used to feed the animals, this would be far more energy efficient.”
from “Is it More Energy Efficient to Be Vegetarian?”, accessed 05/14/20.
Because controlling the Earth to grow the foods we desire is not perceived as the problem in itself, rather the error is seen that it is done inefficiently; do snakes or foxes or hippos or uncivilized people have or need the wisdom to know how to eat best to allow Earth a perpetual future? Is humanity now required to know and implement the most efficient ways to manage Nature which/who pre-existed all mammals and birthed humanity?
· “If you eat animal foods, most of the energy in the plants those animals ate has been lost as heat and only a fraction of it reaches you. Eating plants is more efficient, meaning that less of the energy the plants contain is wasted.”
from “How Does Being a Vegetarian Conoserve Overall Energy in Trophic Levels?”, accessed 05/14/20
It is widely asserted that the manufactured garbage ‘food’ served to incarcerated people satisfies all caloric and nutritional requirements while costing the government only pennies per meal. A model of efficiency for the future, no doubt.
· “By choosing to eat more plant-based foods you can drastically cut your carbon footprint, save precious water supplies and help ensure that vital crop resources are fed to people, rather than livestock.”
from Elizabeth Bluff in “Can We Solve World Hunger and Feed 9 Billion People Just By Eating Less Meat?” (2017), accessed 05/14/20
Of course, even greater carbon reduction can be accomplished via the termination of the techno-industrial system.
† Substance addictions also will be nearly impossible without agriculture, since they depend upon intensive agricultural work and the vast acreage of land allotted to only those crops’ growths.
‡ If they are truly worried at all about the murder of wild Nature, which is doubtful. By all analyses, these ‘green’ charlatans simply want to have more of technological society for longer, and so are looking to preserve a minimum-requirement of Nature, and even then only at her current critical-care life-support status, so as to vampire upon her with all their own luxurious comforts delivered by flashy gadgets and robots.
Note 2. There are numerous reports of all the problems realized when we lose personal, face-to-face engagement and contact with other people, directly, as well as plentiful data about the impact of proximity to and engagement with wild Nature (or even its more captive and restrained form of city “green space” and parks); we can sum it all up to simply say that people go crazy without Nature and under the conditions which most humans now find themselves.
** In all likelihood this began even before we were homo sapiens (modern man), for the near two million years of predecessor hominin species.
