In medicine, shock refers to an extremely serious condition of inadequate blood perfusion. Shock is most often caused by heart problems, severe infections, allergic reaction, massive blood loss, overdose, or spinal cord injury.
Of the 1.2 million people who show up to U.S. emergency rooms with signs and symptoms of shock each year, between 20% and 50% of them die.
Shock can be understood to progress through two broad phases: compensatory (phase 1) and de-compensatory (phase 2). In compensatory shock, the body can “compensate” for the emergency by adjusting blood pressure, diverting resources from the extremities, and using other internal mechanisms.
Victims in compensatory shock may seem, at first glance, to be doing relatively well. They may be lucid and able to talk clearly. But medical professionals know that this is an illusion. Without treatment, they are likely to worsen quickly. Careful assessment of vital signs and mechanism of injury/history of present illness (MOI/HPI) will show that this person is in an extremely perilous situation.
If left untreated or if their injury is series, they will soon enter the second phase of shock: de-compensatory. In this stage, the body can no longer compensate for the underlying issue. As blood and oxygen circulation collapses, cellular metabolism begins to fail. Our bodies begin to die, cell by cell. Vital organs fail one after another. The damage becomes irreversible. Death is nearly certain.
Planetary Ecology and Shock
Like our own lives, life on this planet depends on a precarious balance: the stability of climate, oceanic pH, nitrogen cycles, soil erosion and formation, and populations of beings at the basis of the tropic cascade such as bacteria, plankton and other photosynthesizers, and insects provides the foundation on which the entire biosphere rests.
These major life-support systems of the biosphere function similarly to human organs, each fulfilling a different need for life to continue as we know it. Due to the predations of industrial civilization, these “planetary organs” are in a dire state.
Soil erosion due to agriculture and overgrazing has decimated carbon storage across large portions of the earth’s surface and released this to the atmosphere. The cryosphere (the portion of our planet’s water frozen in ice) is rapidly melting. Thawing permafrost in the far north is releasing methane emissions to the atmosphere. The assaults go on and on.
When a human being goes into shock, the body compensates by shunting blood from the extremities towards the more vital internal organs. The same process is playing out across this planet. Like a human being, the natural world attempts to maintain its own stability. As carbon pollution chokes the atmosphere, for example, plants increase their growth rate, which should capture carbon from the atmosphere and store it in soils and trees trunks, maintaining homeostasis. This is the delicate balance of geological and biological feedbacks that has made Earth an Eden for millions of species over millions of years.
That balance has been shattered by the explosion in agriculture, logging, and fossil fuel burning. Plants can no longer compensate, and “global greening” has been overwhelmed. Instead, we are entering a period of “global browning” as vast areas of vegetation begin to die from sustained drought and climatic changes.
The ecology of this planet is entering a state of de-compensatory shock.
Abundant Cheap Energy Allows Us To Ignore Reality
People living in wealthy nations are largely insulated from ecological collapse because of the availability of cheap energy.
They can ignore the collapse of fish populations since corporations send vast trawlers to remote oceans to vacuum up the last remaining reserves of wild fish. They can ignore the collapse of forests because energy-intensive industrial logging brings wood products from Oregon and Alaska and Indonesia to the world market. They can ignore water shortages because vast amounts of energy are used to pump entire rivers dry to feed growing cities.
Our ability to lie to ourselves, and to each other, is one of our society’s defining features. The urge to deny that anything is wrong is overwhelming. The scale of the immanent catastrophe, which has truly already arrived, is unthinkable. As with a patient in compensatory shock, so with the planet. Ignorance is bliss.
This won’t last. Ignorance is no protection against a burning planet, only against psychological wounds, and only in the short term. We are children of this living world. Our lungs are the oysters of this atmosphere, filtering out pollutants and capturing them inside our delicate tissues. We are permeable creatures, absorbing each chemical toxin industry produces. Like mites living on the surface of our skin, when the supraorganism begins to die, those who are dependent upon it are not long for this world.
What will a person do when they are confronted with the imminent death of themselves, of a loved one, of their civilization, of their biosphere? Deny that it is happening? Reject the science and the evidence of their own eyes? Lash out angrily against those who speak the truth? Try to bargain with reality? Retreat into depression?
These responses are all familiar to both the E.R. doctor and the Earth defender, and increasingly describe global politics. Denial and anger are the defining characteristics of the rising authoritarian tide. Modi, Putin, Trump, Erdoğan, and Bolsonaro are the figureheads of this death cult; there are hundreds of millions behind them.
Bargaining is the primary strategy of the liberals. As the biosphere bleeds from a million clearcuts and chokes on a toxic mixture of industrial chemicals and greenhouse gases, they promote so-called “solutions” that are no different from the status quo. Their fantasies of green energy, sustainable capitalism, and electric vehicles allow them to justify a lie that will kill the world: that they can have “normality”—modern, high-energy way of life—and a living planet at the same time.
Their plans are not even the equivalent of bandaging a bleeding planet. They are harmful in their own right—the equivalent of stabbing the victim elsewhere and claiming that since the wounds aren’t quite as deep, they are actually helping. This is the good-cop, bad-cop routine of modern politics.
That most people are simply depressed and apathetic, then, is no surprise. The normal functioning of industrial civilization is rapidly murdering life on this planet and destroying the capacity to support future life, and in the process immiserating billions of human beings. Anyone who is carefully watching the vital signs of this planet knows that the prognosis is not good.
Righteous anger is fitting response to this situation, but denial has no place now. Bargaining is worse than useless. And depression is understandable, but when paired with inaction it is not excusable. Only by accepting the reality of the situation can we begin to discuss meaningful action.
The reality is that the life support systems of our home, Earth, are failing. Without intervention, the organs of this planet will falter and die. Industrial civilization has shown itself to be incompatible with life. So the path forward is clear. Like open veins, the world’s pipelines must be closed off. The mining industry, opening great sores on the Earth’s surface, must be stopped and the land allowed to scab over. The abrasion that is industrial agriculture must be halted, and the soil bandaged with ecology’s first responders—those plants derisively called “weeds”—and eventually, replaced with forests and grasslands once again. The cancerous factories and toxic industry belching and circulating poisons around the planet must yield to the scalpel. The destruction must be halted, and the land must be allowed to heal.
And humans must find a way to live within the ecological limits of this planet, rather than constantly finding new ways to transgress them. If all you have ever known is how to live in a culture that is destroying the planet, this will take humility, and sacrifice, and a willingness to learn.
The process of ecological collapse has been accelerating for many years. It will not be reversed easily. Many wonders of the natural world are already gone—the billions of passenger pigeons, and the teeming flocks of Great auks. But there are many who remain: blue whales, redwood forests, loggerhead turtles, coral reefs.
Our task as a generation is to manage the coming collapse by accelerating the dismantling and destruction of the systems that must end (capitalism, industrial civilization, the fossil fuel and mining economy, industrial agriculture, etc.). At the same time, we most slow, halt, and reversing the collapse of forests, grasslands, soils, the carbon cycle, and the rest of the living world. And in the midst of all this, we must do our best to build human communities based in sustainability and human rights. Any of these elements in isolation leads to a bleak future. Only in combination do they represent some hope.
When we accept what is happening, the path forward becomes clear. Now we must gather our will and our community and get to work.
Max Wilbert is a third-generation dissident who came of age in post-WTO Seattle. He has been part of grassroots political work for nearly 20 years. His second book, Bright Green Lies, will be released in early 2021.
“Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow them.”
– François-René de Chateaubriand
New research in the prestigious journal Nature estimates that “the global number of trees has fallen by approximately 46% since the start of human civilization.”
The study also suggests that about 15 billion trees are being cut down each year, and that the average age of forests has declined significantly over the last few thousand years.
The study was led by researchers at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies with contributions from scientists at universities and research institutions in Utah, Chile, the UK, Finland, Italy, France, Switzerland, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Brazil, and China.
While fossil fuels have only been burned on a large scale for 200 years, land clearance has been a defining characteristic of civilizations – cultures based around cities and agriculture – since they first emerged around 8,000 years ago.
This land clearance has impacts on global climate. When a forest ecosystem is converted to agriculture, more than two thirds of the carbon that was stored in that forest is lost, and additional carbon stored in soils rich in organic materials will continue to be lost to the atmosphere as erosion accelerates.
Modern science may give us an idea of the magnitude of the climate impact of this pre-industrial land clearance. Over the past several decades of climate research, there has been an increasing focus on the impact of land clearance on modern global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its 2004 report, attributed 17% of global emissions to cutting forests and destroying grasslands – a number which does not include the loss of future carbon storage or emissions directly related to this land clearance, such as methane released from rice paddies or fossil fuels burned by heavy logging equipment.
Some studies show that 50% of the global warming in the United States can be attributed to land clearance – a number that reflects the inordinate impact that changes in land use can have on temperatures, primarily by reducing shade cover and evapotranspiration (the process whereby a good-sized tree puts out thousands of gallons of water into the atmosphere on a hot summer day – their equivalent to our sweating).
So if intensive land clearance has been going on for thousands of years, has it contributed to global warming? Is there a record of the impacts of civilization in the global climate itself?
10,000 years of Climate Change
According to author Lierre Keith, the answer is a resounding yes. Around 10,000 years ago, humans began to cultivate crops. This is the period referred to as the beginning of civilization, and, according to the Keith and other scholars such as David Montgomery, a soil scientist at the University of Washington, it marked the beginning of land clearance and soil erosion on a scale never before seen – and led to massive carbon emissions.
“In Lebanon (and then Greece, and then Italy) the story of civilization is laid bare as the rocky hills,” Keith writes. “Agriculture, hierarchy, deforestation, topsoil loss, militarism, and imperialism became an intensifying feedback loop that ended with the collapse of a bioregion [the Mediterranean basin] that will most likely not recover until after the next ice age.”
Montgomery writes, in his excellent book Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, that the agriculture that followed logging and land clearance led to those rocky hills noted by Keith.
“It is my contention that the invention of [agriculture] fundamentally altered the balance between soil production and soil erosion – dramatically increasing soil erosion.
Other researchers, like Jed Kaplan and his team from the Avre Group at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, have affirmed that preindustrial land clearance has had a massive impact on the landscape.
“It is certain that the forests of many European countries were substantially cleared before the Industrial Revolution,” they write in a 2009 study.
Their data shows that forest cover declined from 35% to 0% in Ireland over the 2800 years before the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The situation was similar in Norway, Finland, and Iceland, where 100% of the arable land was cleared before 1850.
Similarly, the world’s grasslands have been largely destroyed: plowed under for fields of wheat and corn, or buried under spreading pavement. The grain belt, which stretches across the Great Plains of the United States and Canada, and across much of Eastern Europe, southern Russia, and northern China, has decimated the endless fields of constantly shifting native grasses.
The same process is moving inexorably towards its conclusion in the south, in the pampas of Argentina and in the Sahel in Africa. Thousands of species, each uniquely adapted to the grasslands that they call home, are being driven to extinction.
“Agriculture in any form is inherently unsustainable,” writes permaculture expert Toby Hemenway. “We can pass laws to stop some of the harm agriculture does, but these rules will reduce harvests. As soon as food gets tight, the laws will be repealed. There are no structural constraints on agriculture’s ecologically damaging tendencies.”
As Hemenway notes, the massive global population is essentially dependent on agriculture for survival, which makes political change a difficult proposition at best. The seriousness of this problem is not to be underestimated. Seven billion people are dependent on a food system – agricultural civilization – that is killing the planet.
The primary proponent of the hypothesis – that human impacts on climate are as old as civilization – has been Dr. William Ruddiman, a retired professor at the University of Virginia. The theory is often called Ruddiman’s Hypothesis, or, alternately, the Early Anthropocene Hypothesis.
Ruddiman’s research, which relies heavily on atmospheric data from gases trapped in thick ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, shows that around 11,000 years ago carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere began to decline as part of a natural cycle related to the end of the last Ice Age. This reflected a natural pattern that has been seen after previous ice ages.
This decline continued until around 8000 years ago, when the natural trend of declining carbon dioxide turned around, and greenhouse gases began to rise. This coincides with the spread of civilization across more territory in China, India, North Africa, the Middle East, and certain other regions.
Ruddiman’s data shows that deforestation over the next several thousand years released 350 Gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, an amount nearly equal to what has been released since the Industrial Revolution. The figure is corroborated by the research of Kaplan and his team.
Around 5000 years ago, cultures in East and Southeast Asia began to cultivate rice in paddies – irrigated fields constantly submerged in water. Like an artificial wetland, rice paddies create an anaerobic environment, where bacteria metabolizing carbon-based substances (like dead plants) release methane instead of carbon dioxide and the byproduct of their consumption. Ruddiman points to a spike in atmospheric methane preserved in ice cores around 5000 years ago as further evidence of warming due to agriculture.
Destruction of the land as the root
The anti-apartheid organizer Seve Biko wrote in the 1960’s that “One needs to understand the basics before setting up a remedy. A number of organizations now currently ‘fighting against apartheid’ are working on an oversimplified premise. They have taken a brief look at what is, and have diagnosed the problem incorrectly. They have almost completely forgotten about the side effects and have not even considered the root cause. Hence whatever is improved as a remedy will hardly cure the condition.”
The same could be said of much of the modern environmental movement. While coal, oil, and gas are without a doubt worthwhile targets for opposition, the “climate” movement has forgotten the primary importance of the meadows, the grasslands, the forests, the mountains, and the rivers.
Without this, the movement has been led astray. It’s no wonder that ineffective solutions and tepid reforms that actually strengthen global empire are being promoted, instead of what is actually needed: revolutionary overthrow of this system of power.
Image: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, Kate Evans/CIFOR, https://www.flickr.com/photos/cifor/35035343564
Over the past several decades, U.S. industries have injected more than 30 trillion gallons of toxic liquid deep into the earth, using broad expanses of the nation’s geology as an invisible dumping ground.
No company would be allowed to pour such dangerous chemicals into the rivers or onto the soil. But until recently, scientists and environmental officials have assumed that deep layers of rock beneath the earth would safely entomb the waste for millennia.
There are growing signs they were mistaken.
Records from disparate corners of the United States show that wells drilled to bury this waste deep beneath the ground have repeatedly leaked, sending dangerous chemicals and waste gurgling to the surface or, on occasion, seeping into shallow aquifers that store a significant portion of the nation’s drinking water.
In 2010, contaminants from such a well bubbled up in a west Los Angeles dog park. Within the past three years, similar fountains of oil and gas drilling waste have appeared in Oklahoma and Louisiana. In South Florida, 20 of the nation’s most stringently regulated disposal wells failed in the early 1990s, releasing partly treated sewage into aquifers that may one day be needed to supply Miami’s drinking water.
There are more than 680,000 underground waste and injection wells nationwide, more than 150,000 of which shoot industrial fluids thousands of feet below the surface. Scientists and federal regulators acknowledge they do not know how many of the sites are leaking.
Federal officials and many geologists insist that the risks posed by all this dumping are minimal. Accidents are uncommon, they say, and groundwater reserves — from which most Americans get their drinking water — remain safe and far exceed any plausible threat posed by injecting toxic chemicals into the ground.
But in interviews, several key experts acknowledged that the idea that injection is safe rests on science that has not kept pace with reality, and on oversight that doesn’t always work.
“In 10 to 100 years we are going to find out that most of our groundwater is polluted,” said Mario Salazar, an engineer who worked for 25 years as a technical expert with the EPA’s underground injection program in Washington. “A lot of people are going to get sick, and a lot of people may die.”
The boom in oil and natural gas drilling is deepening the uncertainties, geologists acknowledge. Drilling produces copious amounts of waste, burdening regulators and demanding hundreds of additional disposal wells. Those wells — more holes punched in the ground — are changing the earth’s geology, adding man-made fractures that allow water and waste to flow more freely.
“There is no certainty at all in any of this, and whoever tells you the opposite is not telling you the truth,” said Stefan Finsterle, a leading hydrogeologist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who specializes in understanding the properties of rock layers and modeling how fluid flows through them. “You have changed the system with pressure and temperature and fracturing, so you don’t know how it will behave.”
A ProPublica review of well records, case histories and government summaries of more than 220,000 well inspections found that structural failures inside injection wells are routine. From late 2007 to late 2010, one well integrity violation was issued for every six deep injection wells examined — more than 17,000 violations nationally. More than 7,000 wells showed signs that their walls were leaking. Records also show wells are frequently operated in violation of safety regulations and under conditions that greatly increase the risk of fluid leakage and the threat of water contamination.
Structurally, a disposal well is the same as an oil or gas well. Tubes of concrete and steel extend anywhere from a few hundred feet to two miles into the earth. At the bottom, the well opens into a natural rock formation. There is no container. Waste simply seeps out, filling tiny spaces left between the grains in the rock like the gaps between stacked marbles.
Many scientists and regulators say the alternatives to the injection process — burning waste, treating wastewater, recycling, or disposing of waste on the surface — are far more expensive or bring additional environmental risks.
Subterranean waste disposal, they point out, is a cornerstone of the nation’s economy, relied on by the pharmaceutical, agricultural and chemical industries. It’s also critical to a future less dependent on foreign oil: Hydraulic fracturing, “clean coal” technologies, nuclear fuel production and carbon storage (the keystone of the strategy to address climate change) all count on pushing waste into rock formations below the earth’s surface.
In 1915, General Electric released a silent promotional film titled The Home Electricaloffering a glimpse into a gleaming, frictionless future. The film walks viewers through a model electric home: lights flicked on at the wall, meals cooked without fire, laundry cleaned without soap and muscle. A young wife smiles as she moves effortlessly through her day, assisted by gadgets that promised to eliminate drudgery and dirt. This was not a documentary—it was a vision, a fantasy, a sales pitch. At the time, only a small fraction of American households had electricity at all, and nearly 90% of rural families still relied on oil lamps, wood stoves, hand pumps, and washboards. But the message was clear: to be modern was to be electric—and anything less was a kind of failure.
At the dawn of the 20th century, electricity was still a symbol of wealth, not a tool of survival. Most urban households that had it used it only for lighting; refrigeration, electric stoves, or washing machines were luxuries among luxuries. In rural America, most farms and small towns remained off-grid through the 1920s. The electric grid simply didn’t go there. Private utilities, driven by profit, had no interest in building costly infrastructure where it wouldn’t quickly pay off.
And yet, propaganda told a different story. In magazines, World’s Fairs, and promotional pamphlets, electricity was shown as the cornerstone of health, cleanliness, efficiency, and modern womanhood. Electric appliances promised to save time, reduce labor, and lift families—especially women—into the new century. But this future was just out of reach for most people. A growing divide opened up: between those who lived by the rhythms of sun and fire, and those whose lives were quietly reshaped by the flick of a switch.
To live without electricity meant pumping water by hand, chopping and hauling wood for heat and cooking, cleaning clothes with a washboard, and preserving food with salt, smoke, or ice if you had it. It meant darkness after sundown unless you had oil or candles. These were difficult, time-consuming tasks—but also deeply embedded in older, place-based ways of life. People were less dependent on centralized systems. They mended clothes instead of buying new ones, and their food came from the land, not refrigerated trucks.
Yet the narrative of “progress” didn’t tolerate this complexity. By the 1920s and ‘30s, utilities and appliance manufacturers framed non-electric life as backward, dirty, and even unpatriotic. Their message: to be modern was to be electric.
This vision of electrified modernity wasn’t just implicit; it was relentlessly promoted through the dazzling spectacles of world’s fairs and the persuasive language of print advertising. Electricity was framed not only as a technological advance but as a moral and social imperative—a step toward cleanliness, order, and even national progress. At places like the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, entire palaces were built to glorify electricity, their glowing facades and futuristic interiors turning utility into fantasy. Meanwhile, companies like Western Electric and General Electric saturated early 20th-century magazines with ads that equated electric appliances with a better life—especially for women. These messages didn’t merely advertise products; they manufactured desire, anxiety, and aspiration. To remain in the dark was no longer quaint—it was backward.
At the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, the Palace of Electricity was more than an exhibit—it was theater. Illuminated by thousands of electric bulbs, the building itself was proof of concept: a monument to the power and promise of electrification. Inside, visitors encountered displays of the latest electric appliances and power systems, all framed as marvels of human ingenuity. Nearby, the Edison Storage Battery Company showcased innovations in energy storage, while massive dynamos hummed behind glass. The fair suggested not just that electricity was useful, but that it was destiny.
Louisiana purchase exposition, St. Louis, 1904. The Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons.
This theatrical framing of electricity as progress carried into everyday life through print advertisements. A 1910 issue of Popular Electricity magazine illustrated a physician using electric light in surgery, suggesting that even health depended on electrification. In a 1920 ad for the Hughes Electric Range, a beaming housewife is pictured relaxing while dinner “cooks itself,” thanks to the miracle of electricity. Likewise, a Western Electric ad from the same year explained how to build an “electrical housekeeping” system—one that offered freedom from drudgery, but only if the right appliances were purchased.
These messages targeted emotions as much as reason. They played on fears of being left behind, of being an inadequate housewife, of missing out on modernity. Electricity was no longer merely about illumination—it became a symbol of transformation. The more it was portrayed as essential to health, domestic happiness, and national strength, the more it took on the aura of inevitability. A home without electricity was not simply unequipped; it was a failure to progress. Through ads, exhibits, and films, electricity was sold not just as a convenience, but as a moral good.
And so the groundwork was laid—not only for mass electrification, but for the idea that to live well, one must live electrically.
Before the Toaster: Industry was the First Beneficiary of Electrification
While early 20th-century advertisements showed electricity as a miracle for housewives, the truth is that industry was the first and most powerful customer of the electric age. Long before homes had refrigerators or lightbulbs, factories were wiring up to electric motors, electric lighting, and eventually, entire assembly lines driven by centralized power. Electricity made manufacturing more flexible, more scalable, and less tied to water or steam—especially important in urban areas where land was tight and labor plentiful.
By the 1890s, industries like textiles, metalworking, paper mills, and mining were early adopters of electricity, replacing steam engines with electric motors that could power individual machines more efficiently. Instead of a single massive steam engine turning shafts and belts throughout a factory, electric motors allowed decentralized control and faster adaptation to different tasks. Electric lighting also extended working hours and improved productivity, particularly in winter months.
Electrification offered not just operational efficiency but competitive advantage—and companies knew it. By the 1910s and 1920s, large industrial users began lobbying both utilities and governments for better access to power, lower rates, and more reliable service. Their political and economic influence helped shape early utility regulation and infrastructure investment. Many state utility commissions were lobbied heavily by industrial users, who often negotiated bulk discounts and prioritized service reliability over residential expansion.
This dynamic led to a kind of two-tiered system: electrification for factories was seen as economically essential, while electrification for homes was framed as aspirational—or even optional. In rural areas especially, private utilities refused to extend lines unless they could first serve a profitable industrial customer nearby, like a lumber mill or mine.
Meanwhile, companies that produced electrical equipment—like General Electric, Westinghouse, and Allis-Chalmers—stood to gain enormously. They pushed for industrial electrification through trade shows, engineering conferences, and direct lobbying. Publications like Electrical World and Power magazine ran glowing stories about new industrial applications, highlighting speed, productivity, and cost savings. GE and Westinghouse didn’t just sell light bulbs and home gadgets—they also built turbines, dynamos, and entire systems for industrial-scale customers.
And industry didn’t just demand electricity—industry helped finance it. Many early power plants, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast, were built explicitly to serve one or more large factories, and only later expanded to provide residential service. These plants often operated on a model of “load factor optimization”: power usage by factories during the day and homes at night ensured a steady demand curve, which maximized profits.
By the 1920s, the logic was clear: industry came first, homes came second—but both served the larger vision of an electrified economy. And this industrial-first expansion became one of the justifications for public electrification programs in the 1930s. If electricity had become so essential to national productivity, how could it remain out of reach for most rural Americans?
Niagara Falls Power Plant: Built for Industry
In 1895, the Niagara Falls Power Company, led by industrialist Edward Dean Adams and with technological help from Westinghouse Electric and Nikola Tesla, completed the Adams Power Plant Transformer House—one of the first large-scale hydroelectric plants in the world.
Eight of the ten 1,875 kW transformers at the Adams Power Plant Transformer House, 1904, public domain
This plant didn’t exist to power homes. Its primary purpose was to serve nearby industries: electrochemical, electrometallurgical, and manufacturing firms that required vast amounts of energy. The ability to harness hydropower made Niagara Falls a magnet for energy-intensive factories.
Founded in 1891, Carborundum relocated to Niagara Falls in 1895 to take advantage of the abundant hydroelectric power. They manufactured silicon carbide abrasives, known as “carborundum,” using electric furnaces that operated at high heat. The company was the second to contract with the Niagara Falls Power Company, underscoring the plant’s role in attracting energy-intensive industries.
The promise of abundant cheap power made Niagara Falls the world capital of electro-chemical and electro-metallurgical industries, which included such companies as the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA), Carborundum (which developed the world’s hardest abrasive as well as graphite), Union Carbide, American Cyanamid, Auto-Lite Battery, and Occidental Petroleum. These were enterprises that depended upon abundant cheap power. At its industrial peak, in 1929, Niagara Falls was the leading manufacturer in the world of products using abrasives, carbon, chlorine, and ferro-alloys.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Niagara Falls became a hub for industrial activity, primarily due to its abundant hydroelectric power. The establishment of the Niagara Falls Power Company in 1895 marked the beginning of large-scale electricity generation in the area. This readily available power attracted energy-intensive industries, including aluminum production, electrochemical manufacturing, and abrasives. Companies like the Pittsburgh Reduction Company (later Alcoa) and the Carborundum Company set up operations to capitalize on the cheap and plentiful electricity.
Even food companies jumped on the opportunity for abundant electricity. The founder of the Shredded Wheat Company (maker of both Shredded Wheat and Triscuit), Henry Perky, built a large factory directly at Niagara Falls, choosing the site precisely because of its access to cheap, abundant hydroelectric power. When the Triscuit cracker was first produced in 1903, the factory was powered entirely by electricity—a key marketing point. Early ads bragged that Triscuits were “Baked by Electricity,” which was a novel and futuristic idea at the time.
However, this rapid industrial growth came at a significant environmental cost. The freedom afforded to early industry in Niagara Falls meant that area waterways became dumps for chemicals and other toxic substances. By the 1920s, Niagara Falls was home to a dynamic and thriving chemical sector that produced vast amounts of industrial-grade chemicals via hydroelectric power. This included the production of chlorines, degreasers, explosives, pesticides, plastics, and myriad other chemical agents.
The success at Niagara set a precedent: electricity could fuel industrial expansion, and factories began lobbying for access to centralized electric power. States and cities recognized that electrification attracted investment, jobs, and tax revenue. This created political pressure to expand grids and build new generation capacity—not to homes first, but to industrial parks and cities with manufacturing bases.
The environmental impact was profound. In 1986, Canadian researchers discoveredthat the mist from the falls contained cancer-causing chemicals, leading both the U.S. and Canada to promise cleanup efforts. Moreover, the Love Canal neighborhood in Niagara Falls became infamous for being the site of one of the worst environmental disasters involving chemical wastes in U.S. history. The area was used as a dumping ground for nearly 22,000 tons of chemical waste, leading to severe health issues for residents and eventual evacuation of the area.
This historical example underscores the complex legacy of electrification—while it spurred industrial advancement and economic growth, it also led to environmental degradation and public health crises.
The Salesman of the Grid: Samuel Insull and the Corporate Vision of a Public Good
Even as electricity was still being marketed as a lifestyle upgrade—offering clean kitchens, lighted parlors, and “freedom from drudgery”—Samuel Insull was reshaping the electrical industry behind the scenes in ways that would bring electricity to both homes and factories on an unprecedented scale. A former secretary to Thomas Edison, Insull became the president of Chicago Edison (later Commonwealth Edison) and transformed the electric utility into a regional power empire. He championed centralized generation, long-distance transmission, and, most importantly, load diversity: the idea that combining industrial and residential customers would create a steadier, more profitable demand curve.
Industry, after all, consumed massive amounts of electricity during the day, while households peaked in the evenings. By blending these demands, utilities could justify larger power plants that ran closer to capacity around the clock—making electricity cheaper to produce per unit and more profitable to sell.
Insull’s holding companies and financial structures helped finance this expansion, often using consumer payments to support new infrastructure. This helped expand the grid outward—to serve not just wealthy homes and big factories, but small towns and middle-class neighborhoods. Electrification became a virtuous cycle: the more customers (especially industrial ones) you had, the more power you could afford to generate, which brought in more customers. The industrial appetite for power and the domestic aspiration for comfort were two sides of the same system.
By the early 20th century, Insull had consolidated dozens of smaller electric companies into massive holding corporations, effectively inventing the modern utility monopoly. His genius wasn’t technical but financial: he pioneered the use of long-term bonds and ratepayer-backed financing to build expansive infrastructure, including coal-fired power plants and transmission lines that could serve entire cities and suburbs.
Insull also understood that to secure profits, electricity had to become not a luxury, but a public necessity. He lobbied for—and helped shape—state-level utility commissions that regulated rates but guaranteed companies a return on investment. He promoted a pricing model in which larger customers subsidized smaller residential ones, making electricity seem affordable while expanding the customer base. In speeches and newspaper campaigns, Insull insisted that electricity was a public service best delivered by private enterprise—so long as that enterprise was shielded from competition and supported by the state.
But Insull’s vision had limits. His business model was urban, corporate, and capital-intensive. It thrived in cities where growth and profits were assured—but left rural America behind. Even by the late 1920s, nearly 90% of rural households still had no electricity, and private utilities had little interest in changing that. When Insull’s financial empire collapsed during the Great Depression—leaving thousands of investors penniless—it triggered a wave of backlash and set the stage for Roosevelt’s 1930s public electrification programs.
The failure of Insull’s empire didn’t just expose the risks of private monopolies; it also reframed electricity as too essential to be left entirely in corporate hands. If the promise of electrification was to reach beyond city limits, it would take more than advertising. It would take state power.
Electricity as a Public “Good”
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal ushered in that power—both literally and figuratively. Federal programs like the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) tackled electrification as a national mission. The TVA aimed to transform one of the poorest regions in the country through public power and flood control. The REA extended loans to rural cooperatives to build distribution lines where private utilities refused to go. The WPA, though more broadly focused on employment and infrastructure, supported the building of roads, dams, and even electric grids that tied into the new public utilities.
But these were not just engineering projects—they were nation-building efforts, wrapped in the language and imagery of progress. Government-sponsored films, posters, and exhibits cast electrification as a patriotic duty and a moral good. In The TVA at Work (1935), a TVA propaganda film, darkness and floods give way to light as electricity reaches the rural South, promising flood control, education, health, and hope.
Posters issued by the REA featured glowing farmhouses surrounded by darkness, their light a beacon of the federal government’s benevolence. Electrification was no longer a luxury product to be sold—it was a public right to be delivered. And propaganda helped recast the electric switch as not just a convenience, but a symbol of democratic progress.
In the early decades of the 20th century, the business of providing electricity was largely in private hands, dominated by powerful industrialists who operated in a fragmented and often exploitative landscape. Rates varied wildly, service was inconsistent, and rural areas were left behind entirely. Out of this chaos emerged a slow, contested movement to treat electricity not as a luxury good for profit but as a regulated public utility—something closer to a right.
Roosevelt’s electrification programs—especially the TVA and the REA—aimed to provide public benefits rather than private profit. But in reality, most rural Americans didn’t vote on where dams and coal-fired power plants would go, how the landscape would be transformed, or who would manage the power. The decision-making remained highly centralized, and the voice of the people was filtered through federal agencies, engineers, and bureaucrats. If this was democracy, it was a technocratic form—focused on distributing benefits, not sharing power.
Still, for many rural communities, the arrival of electricity felt like democratic inclusion: a recognition by the federal government that their lives mattered too. New Deal propaganda leaned into this feeling. Posters, pamphlets, and films portrayed electrification as a patriotic triumph—uniting the country, modernizing the nation, and bringing light to all Americans, not just the urban elite.
FDR fiercely criticized utility companies for their opposition to these efforts. In one speech, he called out their “selfish purposes,” accusing them of spreading propaganda and corrupting public education to protect their profits. His administration’s Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 was designed to break up massive utility holding companies, increase transparency, and limit the abusive practices that had flourished under Insull’s system.
By the end of the 1930s, electricity had changed in the eyes of the law and the public. It was no longer a commodity like soap or phonographs. It was essential—a regulated utility, under public scrutiny, increasingly expected to reach all people regardless of profit margins.
How Rural Communities Organized for Electricity
Reaching everyone required more than federal mandates; it required rural people—many of whom had never flipped a light switch—to believe electricity was not just possible, but necessary. New Deal propaganda didn’t just promote electrification; it made it feel like a patriotic obligation. In posters, films, and traveling exhibits, electricity was depicted as a force of national renewal, radiating from power plants and wires like sunlight over a darkened land. Farmers who had once relied on kerosene lanterns saw glowing visions of electric barns, modern kitchens, and clean, running water. The message was clear: this wasn’t charity—it was justice.
The REA offered low-interest loans to communities willing to organize themselves into cooperatives. But before wires could be strung, people had to organize—drawing maps, knocking on doors, pooling resources. That kind of coordination didn’t happen spontaneously. It was sparked, in large part, by persuasive media.
REA films like Power and the Land (1940) dramatized the transformation of farm life through electricity. Traveling REA agents brought these short films and illustrated pamphlets to town halls, church basements, and grange meetings, showing everyday people that their neighbors were already forming co-ops—and thriving. REA’s Rural Electrification News magazine featured testimonials from farm wives, who praised electric irons, cream separators, and the ability to read after sunset. Electrification wasn’t just about comfort; it was about dignity and opportunity.
A TVA poster from the period shows power lines bringing power for farm fields, homes, and factories. The subtext was unmistakable: electricity was the pulse of a modern democracy. You didn’t wait for it. You organized for it.
And people did. Between 1935 and 1940, rural electrification—driven by this blend of policy and persuasion—expanded rapidly. By 1940, more than 1.5 million rural homes had electricity, up from barely 300,000 just five years earlier. The wires came not just because the government built them, but because people demanded them, formed cooperatives, and rewired their lives around a new kind of infrastructure—one they now believed they deserved.
When FDR created the REA in 1935, fewer than 10% of rural homes had electricity. By 1953, just under two decades after the REA’s launch, over 90% of U.S. farms had electric service, much of it delivered through cooperatives that had become symbols of rural self-determination.
The Federal Power Act
In 1935, the same year Roosevelt signed executive orders establishing the Rural Electrification Administration, Congress passed the Federal Power Act—an often-overlooked but foundational shift in how electricity was governed in the United States. At the time, only about 60% of American homes had electricity, and the vast majority of rural households remained off the grid. Industry was rapidly becoming reliant on continuous, 24/7 electric power to run increasingly complex machinery and production lines, making reliable electricity essential not just for homes but for the nation’s economic engine.
The Act expanded the jurisdiction of the Federal Power Commission, granting it authority to regulate interstate transmission and wholesale sales of electricity. This marked a decisive move away from the era of laissez-faire monopolies toward public oversight. Industry players, eager for dependable and affordable power to sustain growth and competition, played a subtle but important role in pushing for federal regulation that would stabilize the market and ensure widespread, reliable access. The Act framed electricity not as a luxury commodity but as a vital service that required accountability and coordination. In tandem with the New Deal electrification programs, it laid the legal groundwork for treating electricity as a public good—setting the stage for how electricity would be mobilized, mythologized, and mass-produced during wartime.
Electricity as Patriotic Duty
By the end of the 1930s, electricity had changed in the eyes of the law and the public. It was no longer a commodity like soap or phonographs. It was essential—a regulated utility, under public scrutiny, increasingly expected to reach all people regardless of profit margins.
But as the nation edged closer to war, the story of electricity changed again. The gleaming kitchens and “eighth wonder of the world” dams of New Deal posters gave way to a new message: power meant patriotism. Electricity was no longer just a household convenience or symbol of rural uplift—it was fuel for victory.
Even before the U.S. formally entered World War II, government and industry launched campaigns urging Americans to think of their energy use as a form of service. Factories were electrified at full tilt to produce planes, tanks, and munitions. Wartime posters and advertisements called on citizens to “Do Your Part”—to conserve power at home so it could be redirected to the front. Lights left on unnecessarily weren’t just wasteful; they were unpatriotic.
One striking 1942 poster from the U.S. Office of War Information featured a light switch with the message: “Switch off that light! Less light—more planes.” Another encouraged energy conservation by asking people to switch lights off promptly because “coal is vital to victory” (at this time 56% total electricity on U.S. grids was generated by coal).
For women, especially, electricity was again positioned as a moral responsibility. Earlier ads had promised electric gadgets to free housewives from drudgery; now, propaganda reminded them that their efficient use of electric appliances was part of the national war strategy. The same infrastructure built by New Deal programs now helped turn the rural power grid into an engine of military supply.
Electricity had become inseparable from national identity and survival. To use it wisely was to serve the country. To waste it was to betray the war effort. This was no longer a story of gadgets and progress—it was a story of sacrifice, duty, and unity under the banner of light.
Nowhere was this message clearer than in the materials produced by the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), which managed the massive hydroelectric output of the Columbia River dams in the Pacific Northwest. In the early 1940s, the BPA commissioned a series of posters to dramatize the link between public power and wartime production. One of the most iconic, “Bonneville Fights Time,” shows a welder in a protective mask, sparks flying, framed by dynamic lines of electricity and stylized clock hands. The message: electric power enabled faster, more precise welding—crucial for shipbuilding, aircraft, and munitions production.
The poster’s bold composition connected modernist design with national urgency. Bonneville’s electricity wasn’t just flowing to light bulbs—it was flowing to the war factories of the Pacific coast, to the shipyards of Portland and Seattle, and to the aluminum plants that turned hydroelectric power into lightweight warplanes. These images promoted more than technical efficiency; they sold a vision of democratized power mobilized for total war.
Through such propaganda, the promise of public power was reimagined—not just as a civic good, but as a weapon that could help win World War II.
Electrifying the American Dream
When the war ended, the messaging around electricity shifted again—from sacrifice to surplus. Wartime rationing gave way to a marketing explosion, and the same electrified infrastructure that had powered victory was now poised to power prosperity. With factories retooled for peace-time commerce, and veterans returning with GI Bill benefits and dreams of suburban life, the home became the new front line of American identity—and electric gadgets were its weaponry.
The postwar boom fused electricity with consumption, convenience, and class mobility. Advertisements no longer asked families to conserve power for the troops; they encouraged them to buy electric dishwashers, toasters, vacuum cleaners, televisions. Owning a full suite of appliances became a marker of success, a tangible reward for patriotism and patience. Electricity was no longer just a utility—it was the lifeblood of modern living, sold with the same glamour and intensity once reserved for luxury cars or perfumes.
Utilities and manufacturers teamed up to keep the vision alive. The Live Better Electrically campaign, launched in 1956 and endorsed by celebrities like Ronald Reagan, urged Americans to “go all-electric”—not just for lighting and appliances, but for heating, cooking, and even air conditioning. The campaign painted a glowing picture of total electrification, backed by images of smiling housewives, sparkling kitchens, and obedient gadgets. In one ad, a mother proudly paints a heart on her electric range as her children and husband laugh and smile. The future, once uncertain, had been domesticated.
Nowhere was the all-electric ideal more vividly branded than in the Gold Medallion Home, a product of The Live Better Electrically campaign. These homes were awarded a literal gold medallion by utilities if they met a full checklist: electric heat, electric water heater, electric kitchen appliances, and sufficient wiring to support a future of plugged-in living. Promoted through glossy ads and celebrity endorsements, the Medallion Home symbolized upward mobility, domestic modernity, and patriotic participation in a high-energy future. It was a propaganda campaign that blurred the line between consumer aspiration and infrastructure planning. Today’s “electrify everything” efforts—encouraging heat pumps, EVs, induction stoves, and smart panels—echo this strategy. Once again, homes are being refashioned as sites of technological virtue and national progress, marketed through a familiar mix of lifestyle promise and utility coordination. The medallion has changed shape, but the message remains: the future lives here.
This was propaganda of abundance. And behind it was an unspoken truth: electrification had won. What had once been sold as fantasy—glimpsed in world’s fair palaces or GE films—was now embedded in daily life. The flick of a switch no longer symbolized hope. It had become habit.
Ruralite
Ruralite magazine serves as the flagship publication of Pioneer Utility Resources, a not-for-profit communications cooperative to serve the rural electric cooperatives (or co-ops) across the western United States. It was—and remains—a shared publication platform for dozens of small, locally owned utility co-ops that formed in the wake of the REA.
Each electric co-op—often based in small towns or rural counties—can customize part of the magazine with local news, board updates, outage reports, and community features. But the bulk of the magazine is centrally produced, offering ready-made content: stories about electric living, energy efficiency, co-op values, new technologies, and the benefits of belonging to a cooperative utility system.
In this sense, Ruralite functions as a kind of regional PR organ: a hybrid of lifestyle magazine, customer newsletter, and soft-sell propaganda tool. It is funded by and distributed through electric co-ops themselves, landing monthly in the homes of hundreds of thousands of rural residents.
Though it debuted in 1954—well after the apex of New Deal electrification programs—Ruralite can be seen as a direct descendant of that era’s propaganda infrastructure, repackaged for peacetime and consumer prosperity. The TVA had its posters, the REA had its pamphlets, and Ruralite had glossy photo spreads of farm wives with gleaming electric ranges.
Where New Deal propaganda had rallied Americans to support rural electrification as a national project of fairness and modernity, Ruralite shifted the tone toward comfort, aspiration, and consumer loyalty. It picked up the baton of electrification as cultural transformation, reinforcing the idea that electric living wasn’t just a right—it was the new rural ideal.
Clipped from “For the Curious Ruralite,” tips to encourage electricity use from the December 1954 edition of Ruralite Magazine
Ruralite framed rural electrification not as catching up to the cities, but as leading the way in a new era—one where rural values, ingenuity, and resourcefulness would power the country forward. In this way, co-ops and their members became symbols of progress, not just beneficiaries of it.
This was propaganda not by posters or patriotic slogans, but through community storytelling. Ruralite grounded its messaging in local personalities, recipes, and relatable anecdotes, while embedding calls to adopt more appliances, update homes, and trust in the local co-op as a benevolent, forward-looking institution.
The first Ruralite recipe, for which you need an electric refrigerator, published in Ruralite Magazine, June 1954. Clipped from this June 1, 2024 article.
Today, Ruralite remains rooted in local storytelling, but its tone aligns more with contemporary consumer lifestyle media. Sustainability, renewables, and energy efficiency now appear alongside nostalgic rural features and recipes. Yet despite the modern packaging, the core narrative remains consistent: electricity is integral to the good life. That through-line—from a beacon of modernization to a pillar of local identity—demonstrates how the publication has adapted without abandoning its propagandistic roots.
In the current energy landscape, Ruralite plays a quiet but significant role in advancing the “electrify everything” agenda—the 21st-century push to decarbonize buildings, transportation, and infrastructure by transitioning away from fossil fuels to electric systems.
While Ruralite doesn’t use overtly political language, it steadily normalizes new electric technologies like heat pumps, EVs, induction stoves, and solar arrays. Features on homeowners who upgraded to electric water heaters, profiles of co-ops launching EV charging stations, or DIY guides for energy audits all reinforce the idea that the electric future is practical, responsible, and here. The message is aspirational but grounded in small-town pragmatism: this isn’t Silicon Valley hype—it’s your neighbor electrifying their barn or replacing a propane furnace or reminiscing about life without electricity.
Ruralite continues the legacy of New Deal-era propaganda by promoting ever-greater electricity use—now through electric vehicles and heat pumps instead of fridges and space heaters—reinforcing the idea that progress always means more power, more consumption, and more infrastructure. Its storytelling still serves a strategic function—ensuring electricity remains not just accepted, but desired, in every American home.
Postwar Peak and Decline of Electrification Propaganda
By the 1960s, most American homes—urban and rural—had been electrified. The major battle to electrify the country was won. As a result, the overt electrification-as-progress propaganda that had dominated the New Deal era and postwar boom faded. Electricity became mundane: a background utility, no longer something that needed to be sold as revolutionary.
During the 1970s and early 1980s, the focus of public discourse shifted toward energy crises and conservation. Rather than expanding electrification, the government and utilities started encouraging Americans to use less, not more—a notable, if temporary, reversal. The 1973 oil shock, Three Mile Island (1979), and rising distrust in institutions tempered the earlier utopian energy messaging.
1970’s energy conservation poster, via Low Carbon Institute, in the personal collection of Russell Davies.
However, electrification propaganda never vanished entirely. It just narrowed. Publications like Ruralite and utility co-ops continued localized campaigns, pushing upgrades (like electric water heaters or electric stoves) in rural areas and maintaining a cultural narrative of electric life as modern and efficient.
The Renewables-Era Revival of Electrification Propaganda
In the late 1990s and especially the 2000s, a new wave of electrification propaganda began to emerge, but this time under the banner of climate action. Instead of promoting electricity as luxury or convenience, the new message was: electrify everything to save the planet.
This “green” electrification push encourages:
Electric vehicles (EVs) to replace gasoline cars
Heat pumps to replace fossil fuel heating systems
Induction stoves over gas ranges
Grid modernization and massive renewable build-outs (wind, solar, batteries)
Glossy, optimistic, uncritical propaganda pushing electricity from Ruralite Magazine, December 2023.
The messaging echoes earlier propaganda in tone—glossy, optimistic, often uncritical—but reframes the moral purpose: not modernization for its own sake, but decarbonization. The tools remain similar: media campaigns, federal incentives, public-private partnerships, and co-op publications like Ruralite, which has evolved to reflect this new narrative.
Typical imagery promoting “clean energy.” This image is used on a League of Conservation Voters initiative, Clean Energy for All.
Modern utility outreach events like co-op utility Orcas Power and Light Cooperative’s (OPALCO) EV Jamboree—where electric vehicles are showcased, test drives offered, and electrification is framed as exciting and inevitable—echo the strategies of the REA’s mid-century traveling circuses. Just as the REA brought portable demonstrations of electric appliances and farm equipment to rural fairs to sell the promise of a brighter, cleaner, more efficient life, today’s utilities stage events to generate enthusiasm for electric vehicles, heat pumps, and smart appliances. In both cases, the goal is not just education but persuasion—selling a future tied to deeper dependence on the electric grid.
Advertisement for an EV Jamboree, propaganda for electric vehicles, boats, bikes, etc.
One of the most striking revivals is the push for nuclear power, long dormant after public backlash in the 1980s. Once considered politically radioactive and dangerous, nuclear is now rebranded as a clean energy savior. The Biden administration has supported small modular reactor (SMR) development and extended funding for existing nuclear plants. More recently, President Donald Trump announced plans to reinvest in nuclear infrastructure, positioning it as a strategic national asset and imperative for national security and industry. The messaging is clear: nuclear is back, and it’s being sold not just as a technology, but as a patriotic imperative.
The Green Delusion and the Digital Demand: Modern Propaganda for an Electrified Future
In the 21st century, electrification propaganda has been reborn—not as a tool to bring light to rural homes or sell refrigerators, but as a moral and technological mandate. This time, it’s cloaked in the language of sustainability, innovation, and decarbonization. Utilities, tech giants, and government agencies now present an electrified future as inevitable and ethical. But beneath the rhetoric lies a powerful continuity with the past: electricity must still be sold to the public, and propaganda remains the vehicle of persuasion.
The contemporary campaign is driven by a potent mix of actors. Investor-owned utilities plaster their websites with wind turbines and solar panels, promoting the idea that they are leading the charge toward a cleaner future. Federal and state governments offer rebates and incentives for EVs, solar panels, heat pumps, and induction stoves, framing these changes not only as personal upgrades, but as civic duties. Corporate giants like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon amplify the message, touting their commitment to “100% renewable” operations—while quietly brokering deals for bespoke gas and nuclear plants to keep their operations online, and selling their digital services to fossil fuels companies.
Deceptive practices are proliferating alongside the expansion of renewable energy infrastructure. Companies developing utility-scale solar projects often mislead communities about the scale, impact, and permanence of proposed developments—if they engage with them at all. Local residents frequently report being excluded from the planning process, receiving vague or misleading information, or being outright lied to about how the projects will alter their environment. As Dunlap et al. document in their paper ‘A Dead Sea of Solar Panels:” Solar Enclosure, Extractivism and the Progressive Degradation of the California Desert, such tactics are not anomalies but part of a systemic pattern:
[W]e would flat out ask them [the company] questions and their answers were not honest … [it] led me to believe they really didn’t care about us. They had charts of where lines were going to be, and later, we found out that it wasn’t necessarily the truthful proposal. And you’re thinking: ‘why do you have to deceive us?’
— Desert Center resident, quoted in ‘A Dead Sea of Solar Panels:’ solar enclosure, extractivism and the progressive degradation of the California desert, by Dunlap et. al.
These projects, framed publicly as green progress, often mask an extractive logic—one that mirrors the practices of fossil fuel development, only cloaked in the language of sustainability.
At the heart of this new energy push lies a paradox: the renewable future requires more electricity than ever before. Electrifying transportation, heating, and industry demands a massive expansion of grid infrastructure—new transmission lines, more generation, and more raw materials. But increasingly, the driver of this expansion is data.
Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and cryptocurrency mining are extraordinarily power-hungry. Modern AI models require vast data centers, each consuming megawatts of electricity—often 24/7. In his May 2025 Executive Order promoting nuclear energy, President Donald Trump made this explicit: “Advanced nuclear reactors will power data centers, AI infrastructure, and critical defense operations.” Here, electricity isn’t just framed as a public good—it’s a strategic asset. The demand for clean, constant energy is now justified not by light bulbs or quality of life, but by national security and economic dominance in the digital age.
This shift has profound implications. The public is once again being asked to accept massive infrastructure projects—new power generation plants and transmission corridors, subsidies for private companies, and increased energy bills—as the price of progress. Utilities and politicians assure us that this growth is green, even as the material and ecological costs of building out renewables and data infrastructure are hidden from view. The new propaganda is sleeker, data-driven, and more morally charged—but at its core, it performs the same function as its 20th-century predecessors: to justify a massive increase in power use.
A particularly insidious thread in this new wave of propaganda is the claim that artificial intelligence will “solve” climate change. This narrative, repeated by CEOs, media outlets, and government officials, frames AI as a kind of techno-savior: capable of optimizing energy use, designing better renewables, and fixing broken supply chains. But while these applications are technically possible, they are marginal compared to the staggering energy footprint of building and running large-scale AI systems. Training a single frontier model can consume as much power as a small town.Once operational, the server farms that host these models run 24/7, devouring electricity and water—often in drought-prone areas—and prompting utilities to fire up old coal and gas plants to meet projected demand.
Under the guise of “solving” the climate crisis, the AI boom is accelerating it. And just like earlier propaganda campaigns, the messaging is carefully crafted: press releases about “green AI” and “green-by-AI” along with glossy reports touting efficiency gains distract from the physical realities of extraction, combustion, and carbon emissions. The promise of virtual solutions is being used to justify real-world expansion of energy-intensive infrastructure. If previous generations were sold the dream of electrified domestic bliss, today’s consumers are being sold a dream of digital salvation—packaged in clean fonts and cloud metaphors, but grounded in the same old logic of growth at all costs.
The Material Reality of “Electrify Everything”
While the language of “smart grids,” “clean energy,” and “electrify everything” suggests a sleek, seamless transition to a more sustainable future, the material realities tell a very different story. Every CPU chip, electric vehicle, solar panel, wind turbine, and smart meter is built from a global chain of extractive processes—mined lithium, cobalt, copper, rare earth elements, steel, silicon, and more—often sourced under environmentally destructive and socially exploitative conditions. Expanding the grid to support these technologies requires not just energy but immense physical infrastructure: transmission lines slicing through forests and deserts, substations and data centers devouring land and power, and constant maintenance of an aging, overstretched network.
Yet this reality is largely absent from public-facing narratives. Instead, we’re fed slogans like “energy humanism” and “clean electrification”—terms that obscure the industrial scale and catastrophic impacts of what’s being proposed. Like the early electrification propaganda that portrayed hydropower as endlessly abundant and benevolent (salmon and rivers be damned), today’s messaging continues to erase the costs of extraction, land use, and energy consumption, promoting technological salvation without acknowledging the planetary toll.
Propaganda for “green minerals” extraction in Zambia
The scale of extraction required to electrify everything is staggering. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), reaching global climate goals by 2040 could require a massive increase in demand for minerals like lithium, cobalt, and nickel. For lithium alone, the World Bank estimates production must at least quadruple by 2040 to meet EV and battery storage needs. Copper—essential for wiring and grid infrastructure—faces a predicted shortfall of 6 million metric tons per year by 2031, even as global demand continues to surge with data centers, EVs, and electrification programs.
If you just paint your mining equipment green and use more electricity to mine, somehow that will make mining “sustainable”? Illustration from the paper Advancing toward sustainability: The emergence of green mining technologies and practices published in Green and Smart Mining Engineering
Mining companies have seized the moment to rebrand themselves as climate heroes. Lithium Americas, which plans to operate the massive Thacker Pass lithium mine in Nevada, is described as “a cornerstone for the clean energy transition” and touts itself as a boon for local employment, even while the company destroys thousands of acres of critical habitat. The company promises jobs, school funding, and tax revenue—classic propaganda borrowed from 20th-century industrial playbooks. But local resistance, including from communities like the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe, underscores the deeper truth: these projects degrade ecosystems, threaten sacred sites, and deplete water resources in arid regions.
Another mining giant, Rio Tinto, has aggressively marketed its “green” copper and lithium projects in Serbia, Australia, and the U.S. as “supporting the green energy revolution,” while downplaying community opposition, pollution risks, and the company’s long history of environmental destruction. Their PR materials highlight “sustainable mining,” “low-carbon futures,” and “partnering with communities,” despite persistent local protests and growing global awareness of mining’s high environmental costs.
What’s missing from these narratives is any serious reckoning with the energy required to mine, transport, refine, and manufacture these materials, along with the energy needed to power the growing web of electrified infrastructure. As the demand for data centers, EV fleets, AI training clusters, and smart grids accelerates, we are rapidly expanding industrialization in the name of sustainability, substituting fossil extractivism with mineral extractivism rather than questioning the ever-increasing energy and material throughput of modern society.
Across the U.S., utilities are aggressively promoting electric vehicles, heat pumps, and “smart” appliances as part of their electrification campaigns—often framed as climate solutions. Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) in California, for example, offers rebates on EVs and encourages members to electrify their homes and transportation. Yet at the very same time, utilities like PG&E also warn that the electric grid is under strain and must expand dramatically to meet rising demand. This contradiction is rarely acknowledged. Instead, utilities position grid expansion as inevitable and green, framing it as “modernization” or “resilience.” What’s omitted is that electrifying everything doesn’t reduce energy use—it shifts and increases it, requiring vast new infrastructure, more centralized control, and continued extractivism.
The public is told that using more electricity will save the planet, while being asked to accept more pollution and destroyed environments along with new transmission lines, substations, and higher rates to pay for it all.
From Luxury to Necessity: Total Dependence on a Fragile Grid
The stability of the electricity grid requires electricity supply to constantly meet electricity demand, which in turn, requires numerous entities that operate different components of the grid to coordinate with each other.
Over the last century, electricity has shifted from a shimmering novelty to an unspoken necessity—so deeply embedded in daily life that its absence feels like a crisis. This transformation did not happen organically; it was engineered through decades of propaganda, from World’s Fairs and government-backed campaigns to glossy co-op magazines and modern “electrify everything” initiatives. What began as a promise of convenience became a system of total dependence.
OPALCO pushes EVs, electric appliances and heat pumps, while at the same time publishing articles about how the grid is under strain.
Today, every layer of modern life—communication, healthcare, finance, water delivery, food preservation, transportation, and farming—relies on a constant, invisible stream of electrons. Yet the grid that supplies them is increasingly strained and precarious. As utilities push electric vehicles, heat pumps, and AI-fueled growth, and states (like Washington State) offer tax incentives to electricity-hungry industries, they simultaneously warn that the grid must expand rapidly to avoid collapse. The public is told this expansion is progress. But the more electrified our lives become, the more vulnerable we are to its failures.
This was laid bare in March 2024, when a massive blackout in Spain left over two million people without power and seven dead. Train systems halted. ATMs stopped working. Hospitals ran on limited backup power. Food spoiled, water systems faltered, and thousands were stranded in elevators and subways. The cause? A chain of technical failures made worse by infrastructure stretched thin by new demands and the rapid expansion of renewables. Spanish officials called it a “wake-up call.” But for many, it was a terrifying glimpse into just how brittle the electric scaffolding of modern life has become.
Contrast that with life just 130 years ago, when the vast majority of Americans lived without electricity. Homes were lit by kerosene and heated by wood. Water was drawn from wells. Food was preserved with salt or root cellars. Communities were far more self-reliant, and daily life, while harder in some ways, was not exposed to the singular point of failure that defines today’s electrified society.
Before widespread electrification, communities were more tightly knit by necessity. Without the conveniences of refrigeration, electric heating, or instant communication, people relied on one another. Neighbors shared food, labor, stories, and tools. Social life centered around common spaces—markets, churches, schools, porches. Mutual aid was not a political slogan but a basic survival strategy. Electricity helped alleviate certain physical burdens, but it also enabled a more atomized existence: private appliances replace shared labor, television and now Netflix replace neighborhood gatherings, and online connection supplants physical community.
The electrification of everything, sold as liberation, has created a new form of total dependence. We have not simply added electricity to our lives—we have rewired life itself to require it. And as the grid stretches to accommodate AI servers, data centers, electric fleets, and “smart” everything, the question we must ask is no longer how much we can electrify—but how much failure we can endure.
It’s hard to imagine life today without electricity—yet just 130 years ago, almost no one had it, and communities thrived in very different ways. Our deepening dependence on the grid is not simply our choice; technologies like AI and massive data centers are being imposed upon us, often without real consent or public debate.
As we barrel toward ecological collapse—pervasive pollution, climate chaos, biodiversity loss, and the sixth mass extinction—our blind faith in endless electrification risks bringing us back to a state not unlike that distant past, but under far more desperate circumstances. Now more than ever, we must question the costs we ignore and face the difficult truth: the future we’re building may demand everything we take for granted, and then some.
Public Works Administration Project, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bonneville Power and Navigation Dam in Oregon, Columbia River, 40 miles East of Portland, “Downstream side of Blocks 7 and 8 of North Half of Spillway Dam and Piers 9 to 12. Inclusive of South Half of Dam”. Oct 24, 1936. National Archives and Records Administration.
Editor’s note: “I think hope is really harmful for several reasons. False hopes bind us to unlivable situations, and they blind us to real possibilities. Does anybody really think that Weyerhaeuser is going to stop deforesting because we ask nicely? Does anybody really think that if a democrat would have gotten into the White House that things would be ok? Does anybody think that vivisectors will stop torturing animals just because we stand outside with a sign?
That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t stand out there with that sign. What it means is, do we really believe that they will stop because we do that? And if you don’t believe that, what does that mean? The book I have just recently completed is really centered around this question. Do you believe that the culture will undergo a voluntary transformation to obtain a sustainable way of living? If you don’t, what does that mean for our strategy and for our tactics? We don’t know. The reason we don’t know is that we don’t ask that question. The reason we don’t ask that question is that we’re so busy pretending that we have hope.” – Derrick Jensen December 1st, 2004
Why is it that so many people are always busy claiming that we need hope? One recent article I saw discusses “active hope” as if that is any different from regular “hope.” Hope is hopium, be it active hope, regular hope, passive hope, or resigned hope. Put almost any word you want (except “false”) in front of the word hope, and you will cause me to assume that you are selling something. Something that smells like bullshit.
Before I go into detail regarding hope along with more analysis that I am frequently doing, I came across this article courtesy of Jan Andrew Bloxham and Steve Pyke, which more or less succinctly wraps up exactly what I’ve been saying for the last decade. Short quotes really don’t do it justice as one really needs to read the entire article, but I’ll provide a snippet here:
“Biosphere Collapse: We Are in a Terminal Phase
The Sixth Mass Extinction is not a future risk—it is happening now, and human activity is the sole cause.
Extinction Rates: Current rates are 100–1,000 times higher than the “background” rate of the Cenozoic era. While the oft-cited “250–300 species per day” figure is debated (due to undercounting invertebrates and microbes), conservative estimates still suggest ~150 species lost daily. For context, the Permian-Triassic extinction (“The Great Dying”) wiped out 90% of species over 60,000 years. We’re matching that pace in decades.
Food Web Collapse: Phytoplankton (the base of marine food chains) have declined 40% since 1950. Insect biomass is dropping 2.5% annually, threatening pollination and soil health.
Conclusion: The biosphere is unravelling faster than evolution can adapt. Humans are not exempt—we are apex predators in a collapsing food web.”
Derrick Jensen told us about hope almost two decades ago and explained that the reason people think we need hope is through cultural conditioning, and this is how he describes hope, quote:
“Hope is, in fact, a curse, a bane. I say this not only because of the lovely Buddhist saying “Hope and fear chase each other’s tails,” not only because hope leads us away from the present, away from who and where we are right now and toward some imaginary future state. I say this because of what hope is.
More or less all of us yammer on more or less endlessly about hope. You wouldn’t believe — or maybe you would — how many magazine editors have asked me to write about the apocalypse, then enjoined me to leave readers with a sense of hope. But what, precisely, is hope? At a talk I gave last spring, someone asked me to define it. I turned the question back on the audience, and here’s the definition we all came up with: hope is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless.”
Going back to my first article here, the first thing one should determine is whether the situation being looked at is a problem or a predicament. A problem, by definition, has an answer or a solution. A predicament is often called different names such as dilemma, but Wikipedia calls it a “wicked problem.” Under the word dilemma is a less complex definition, where we once again see the word predicament under the “See Also” section. Here is the entry for dilemma on Wikipedia.
Something that is a problem one has agency over, meaning that there is a solution which is both attainable and feasible. Therefore, hope actually prevents one from attaining that goal, quote:
“When you give up on hope, you turn away from fear.“
So, in reality, for almost any problem, what we need is not hope, but COURAGE!
Of course, much has changed over the last 19 years since that article was written in terms of how the predicaments we face have become far worse. Still, nothing has really changed about society making any real efforts to abandon technology use and civilization. When I say things like that, I often get criticized for what is assumed that I want “to live like a cave man” or that I am “Malthusian” or that I just want to “give up.” I wrote The Cycle of Life specifically for those folks.
Now, for the bad news: predicaments don’t have solutions, they only have outcomes. Yes, my regular readers are most likely very tired of reading that same message over and over and over again. But here’s the catch – courage is great for predicaments too! An article by Frank Moone gives us details on what to do. In it, he says that: “Hiding out, giving up, or doing nothing is not an acceptable response.“
Of course, unfortunately, there are people who will do just that.Simply telling people what an acceptable response is won’t necessarily get them to comply. There are literally hundreds of books out there that describe the exact same things, but again, only people who want to do that will actually follow through. It really is absolutely not one bit different to people who read my articles versus people who couldn’t be less interested. No interest = no compliance, not that any readers will comply either (of course, I haven’t actually ever asked anybody to do anything – I’ve only made general recommendations). There are literally millions of people who simply do not care. Is it because of ignorance? Doubtful – as they’ve been told; they choose not to believe. Of course, belief is irrelevant to how the system works. It will continue to work the same way whether one believes in it or not, which is the great thing about facts. Not believing in them doesn’t change them.
The most important part about Frank’s article about “active acceptance” is what it doesn’t tell you. Sadly, the article is based partly on fear. Notice how it talks about survival? Here’s the part I disagree with, quote: “Leave a legacy of wisdom and care for future generations.“
Articles on “how to survive” are literally everywhere. Prepping handbooks, food preparation and storage, books about weapons, bunker building books, Earthships, Transition Towns, The Venus Project, and every other type of preparation manual, book, concept, and living arrangement are available at your nearest library or bookstore or online. I’ve written about countless ideas all based on the same premise. Fear of death. But what if survival is highly over-rated? What if there ARE NO future generations? What if the generation being born today is the last one? Needless to say, not everyone is going to be interested in accomplishing something they see no need for because they see it as a waste of time when they could be doing something they are actually passionate about. Focusing on surviving isn’t Living Now. Focusing on surviving is more or less similar to focusing on Dying Now. One must choose how he or she wants to live – do you want to run towards life or away from death?
Frank’s article is good – don’t get me wrong. But it repeats the same message that so many articles promoting survival do – let’s deny reality and promote false hope. One can fear death and choose to focus on attempting to evade it, but this is really the definition of insanity because humans have a natural instinct for survival to begin with (so one doesn’t have to really spend all their time remembering to survive) AND you still won’t escape it. Now, if one really wants to spend their time doing that, then no harm, no foul. If, on the other hand, one isn’t afraid of death and has no interest in such endeavors, then they shouldn’t be shamed for something they see no motivation for or satisfaction in.
Just because I’m passionate about reducing the amount of energy and resources I use doesn’t mean that I think it is OK to try to shame others into doing this as well in a misguided effort to reduce the planetary ecological footprint. It’s just not going to happen. The billionaires certainly couldn’t give two craps about what I’m doing one way or the other and they certainly aren’t going to change their lifestyles to accommodate what I think is important. My message is for people to accept our predicaments for what they are, discover what they are truly passionate about, and work towards that end, at the same time enjoying life and nature and being grateful for what still exists today.
To understand this just a bit deeper, one must understand personal values versus personal traits and the psychology behind them. Nate Hagens goes into detail on both the dark triad and the dark tetrad personality traits. One can claim specific values but have personality traits which oppose those values, which instantly points to the person being a liar (and potentially a pathological liar, which narcissists tend to be). Either way, traits will outcompete values in almost all circumstances. Most people’s traits and values are much closer in alignment to each other, but we all know people who fit into the dark triad and tetrad patterns.
I understand what many people in the overshoot community would like to see with regards to developing a sustainable community. I would very much like that myself. I actually seriously considered embarking on building one myself (following in the footsteps of many other individuals who have done this). But then I read countless stories of struggles from others, and enterprises that turned into something far less grand than had been anticipated. Many of these projects failed and even the ones which have succeeded haven’t truly met up with the original expectations. The MPP works just as prevalently in this regard as it does in mainstream society. I also knew about places in my own state which had originally been developed as utopian societies, such as the Kristeen Community, New Harmony, and Padanaram Settlement, which all failed as they were originally set up. The Padanaram Settlement is still in operation, but not like it was for many years. Like most places whose originator/founder has passed away, changes within the community have made it more like a regular town now.
I have attempted to point out many times that attachment to outcome is often associated with goal-setting and is generally ill-advised in the future that we will experience because of the fact that many if not most goals/outcomes will become impossible to meet. Some goals will be far more attainable than others, especially shorter-term ones versus long-term goals. Part of my advice comes from my own experiences. I have always been a rather goal-oriented person. Understanding overshoot means coming to terms with the reality that quite literally everything around us is changing and goals which once may have been attainable now no longer are, simply due to energy and resource decline and climate change, among many other symptom predicaments. This has been difficult to accept.
This is most certainly NOT to say to give up on any goals that one is passionate about, but to recommend being flexible about goals. Be aware of the strong possibility that your life may come apart at the seams when you least expect it. Why you ask? Because of the Technate of North America. Everything you thought you knew is about to change if it hasn’t already under the surface (or even on the surface). I don’t agree with everything in the article (it does appear to be overshoot blind), but the systems surrounding us here in the U.S. are being taken apart, one by one. It is true that collapse doesn’t generally happen in a controlled fashion because it isn’t under the control of any single person or entity. I agree wholeheartedly with that assessment.
Meanwhile, a new study shows that peak carbon sequestration was in 2008, and since then the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by plants has declined by an average of 0.25% a year. Another paper demonstrates that in 2023, the CO2 growth rate was 3.37 ± 0.11 ppm at Mauna Loa, which was 86% above that of the previous year and hit a record high since observations began in 1958, while global fossil fuel CO2 emissions only increased by 0.6% ± 0.5%. This implies an unprecedented weakening of land and ocean sinks, and raises the question of where and why this reduction happened. The rate at which climate change is proceeding is increasing dramatically. This was accurately predicted many years ago but is now happening. See also Carbon Sinks Are Becoming Carbon Sources.
Of course, something else that has been slowing for quite some time could easily bring an end to agriculture to parts of Europe. Here’s the quote that brings relevance to everything above in today’s article:
“A lot of discussion is, how should agriculture prepare for this,” he said. But a collapse of the heat-transporting circulation is a going-out-of-business scenario for European agriculture, he added. “You cannot adapt to this. There’s some studies of what happens to agriculture in Great Britain, and it becomes like trying to grow potatoes in Northern Norway.”
THAT is the overwhelming theme I have been attempting to explain for the last four years here. You cannot adapt to this. We’re not talking just about Great Britain, Europe, or anywhere specific. Leon Simons says this regarding the rate of warming globally:
“As far as we can determine, this is the fastest rate of warming in the history of our planet!“
The rate of change will overtake the rate of evolution whereby evolution cannot keep up with the changes. Rather than fall into denial of reality, utilize optimism bias, and attempt to bargain to maintain civilization, one must comprehend that there is no escaping this and that we lack agency (who exactly is “we”?), despite unsubstantiated claims to the contrary by those who are busy trying to sell you a fantasy that is not to be. Don’t fall into the hope trap – seek courage instead.
A new study on birds points out yet another symptom predicament I have repeatedly mentioned, especially recently – pollution loading. Here’s the poignant part of the article, quote:
“Ideally, you do not want these substances in your body, but in practice, it is virtually impossible for humans and many other living organisms to avoid them.
Recent research and a new method for detecting PFAS bring both bad and good news. The bad news is that we are finding PFAS in places we have not previously found them. The good news is that this means we have become better at detecting these substances.
“The biggest increase is in the livers of wading birds. We found up to 180 times more PFAS than previously,” said Zhang.“
Perhaps pollution loading is the reason HPAI H5N1 bird flu has been so deadly to birds and now mammals, which signals potential reasons why humans are becoming so much more disease-ridden as these chemicals, compounds, and toxins add up in our bodies. This is of huge concern because of the implications it has regarding those who think regenerative agriculture or permaculture will build resilience and rebuild the soil. Rebuilding the soil is a lovely idea, and it seems relatively easy to add nutrients to it through mulching and other soil amendments. But how does one rid the soil of microplastics, PFAS, PFOS, dioxins, salts, and a thousand other chemicals/chemical compounds? All of these pollutants are steadily increasing and doing so rather rapidly now due to increased wildfires, winds, extreme weather events, and extreme rain/flooding events.
To end this article, I present yet another excellent article from Dave Pollard summarizing the backdrop and leadup to the fiascoes unfolding currently in the U.S. but also many other nations as well. The bottom line is that reality is a cruel master, and many of the illusions we chose to believe in didn’t actually exist in the first place. Still, just like the monkeys fighting in the power station in Sri Lanka causing a nation-wide blackout, the same scenario is unfolding in the U.S., quote:
“And for all of that, these massive, staggeringly complex, bureaucratic systems are so easy to break! All it takes is a few monkeys!
Maybe, as we watch our exhausted, fraudulent, incompetently-‘led’ civilization falling apart all around us, we can finally open our eyes and see that it never has been what we believed it was, with all our smarmy talk of “freedom” and “democracy”. It’s been a sham from the start, but we believed the nonsense we’ve been told about it because we wanted to believe it. Take away everything we have, but you’ll never take away our belief in our human superiority, our manifest destiny, the myth of perpetual progress as we spread across the universe, and, most of all, our certainty that we will be saved.
So we have DOGE, perhaps the most blatantly, overtly incompetent gang of monkeys the world has ever seen, let loose in the ‘power factory’ by the Child King, the most incompetent business person in the history of civilization, wreaking havoc on every essential public service in the US.
And we have the incompetent, miseducated, sci-fi dreamer technophiles, with their wild untested ideas for Marvel Comics-style rescues of our ecosystems, let loose to play at geoengineering, sucking up billions from the dregs of the world’s fast-failing treasuries to play at making fusion energy, and carbon capture, and AI everything, and quantum everything, and starships to anywhere-but-this-fucked-planet, and carbon (and now water) cap-and-trade offset exchanges (for those that flunked science). Gotta be some salvation in there somewhere! It’s ordained!”
Watching this unfold is quite sickening, only buffered by the fact that most of us in the overshoot community knew that collapse would come sooner or later. I just think that most of us had wished that we might eke out a few more years first.
Thank goodness for some beautiful pictures at Manistee, Michigan to distract one away from all of this for a bit!
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