From the website of the Deep Green Bush School, a small alternative education school in Aotearoa (New Zealand):
The DGBS is a participatory, technology-free, evolutionary and revolutionary school designed to raise intelligent, healthy, mature, responsible young adults who can think for themselves, meet their needs, live a meaningful life and challenge the current system in order to bring about a healthy world. We are raising the dreamers, healers, rebels and the revolutionaries this world needs.
Our design is based on neuroscience, evolution, anthropology, and thousands of years of sustainable indigenous education. There is no other school like us: students learn how to live within the Earth’s limits, they learn to think about future generations, they learn what a healthy and sustainable way of life is, and they learn to challenge what is wrong and heal the planet.
We nurture a healthy mindset and the courage to challenge.
The image and the title of this post come from the Deep Green Bush School student newsletter, written and compiled by the 5-18 year old students, which you can read here: http://www.deepgreenbushschool.org/uploads/4/2/7/6/42762299/climate_change_-_direct_action_newsletter_2019.pdf
The Solar Scam
People think that solar is the solution. But with this current way of life we would have to cover half the Earth in solar panels just to fuel our cars, video games, Starbucks coffees, McDonald’s, kids’ toys, overseas holidays and iPads.But solar energy won’t do anything because it still requires mining, fossil fuels, cutting down forests, and toxic chemicals just to make solar panels.
If solar panels lasted forever that would be one thing. but they start degrading as soon as they are installed and they would need to be replaced every five to twenty years. So if half the Earth was already covered in solar panels, someone would have to replace all of them every several years. What would happen to all the old ones if half the Earth is already covered? Then the other half would have to be covered in old junk solar panels.
You still think solar is the solution? Each panel requires incredibly toxic chemicals to make. Chemicals such as phosphine, arsenic, arsine, trichloroethane, phosphorous oxychloride, ethyl vinyl acetate, silicon trioxide, stannic chloride, tantalum pentoxide, lead, hexavalent chromium, cadmium and silane.* All of these are incredibly toxic chemicals that are not just bad but require mining, cutting down forests, factories and fossil fuels in order to produce.
All these resources don’t just appear out of thin air. The same goes for wind turbines and dams. There is no way any renewable energy will work because we’ve already taken so much from the Earth. And why? Just so we can continue to live our destructive way of life. Solar, wind and other renewables are an idiotic scam to make people feel better about climate change. People should realise that we don’t need more energy than we can get from our own two hands.
Read on here: http://www.deepgreenbushschool.org/uploads/4/2/7/6/42762299/climate_change_-_direct_action_newsletter_2019.pdf
The Solar Scam is brief but brilliant. Covers the whole issue on a postcard. Should be required reading for all the Green New Dealers.
I love the Solar Scam piece. However, the sentence about which chemicals are used to make a panel has an asterisk which is not footnoted. Where can I learn more about what’s in these things?
Hey Simeon – that was referencing a book called “Green Illusions” by Ozzie Zehner. Good book. Also keep an eye out for a forthcoming book with a deep green perspective on these issues. It’s called Bright Green Lies and was written by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert.