Vermont has a reputation for producing sturdy New England farm folk – hardscrabble people who lived full lives in challenging conditions. Our neighbors, Frank and Virginia, were prime examples. Living well into their eighties, they never owned a car or a phone, and never went on a vacation; they saved and reused everything, and grew their own food. Despite – or probably because of – the simplicity of their lives, they were happy.
Now there is a different kind of folk in the Green Mountain landscape. You’ll find them rushing to the airport in their hybrid car, smartphone glued to their hands, trying to catch a plane for their vacation abroad. Often well-meaning and ‘progressive’, they tend to look down on people like Frank and Virginia for not being ‘green’ enough. The reality, of course, is that these self-described environmentalists have a far greater impact on the Earth than those older Vermonters did.
Mainstream notions of monetary and career ‘success’ lead us to dismiss simpler ways of life. Unfortunately, this leaves us utterly wedded to the economic system that lies behind all our environmental problems, including climate change.
Crisis Logic
Bill McKibben‘s recent appearance in Hardwick to promote his new book, Falter, got me thinking about this. Back in 2008 McKibben correctly identified our growth-obsessed economy as the source of the ecological collapse we face today, explaining that when the economy grows larger than necessary to meet our basic needs, its social and environmental costs outweigh any benefits.
He pointed out that our consumerist way of life – in which we strive for more no matter how much we already have – is one of the ways corporations keep our bloated economy growing. The irony, he added, is that perennial accumulation does not even make us happy. But now, sadly, McKibben studiously avoids criticizing the very economy he once fingered as the source of our environmental crisis.
During his talk he referred to Exxon’s ‘big lie’: the company knew about climate change long ago but hid the truth. Ironically, McKibben’s presentation did something similar by hiding the fact that his only ‘solution’ to climate change – the rapid transition from fossil fuels to industrial renewables – actually causes astounding environmental damage.
Out of the Back Comes Modernity
Solar power, he said, is “just glass angled at the sun, and out the back comes ‘modernity’.” But solar is much more than just glass. One example? Like wind power, it requires the environmentally devastating – and fossil-fuel based – mining of rare earth metals. And that ‘modernity’ coming out the back? That is the lifestyle that is killing the planet.
McKibben extolled the virtues of Green Mountain Power’s industrial ‘renewable’ developments, failing to mention that GMP sells the Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) from those projects to out-of-state utilities, thereby subsidizing the production of dirty energy elsewhere. He also neglected to say that one of GMP’s parent companies is tar sands giant Enbridge, which owns a $1.5 billion stake in the Dakota Access Pipeline and is currently working to use Vermont as a corridor for future fracked-gas transport.
Therein Lies the Deception
McKibben once claimed that “every turn of the blade” of an industrial wind turbine “reduces fossil fuel consumption somewhere.” When the RECs are sold, however, this is simply untrue. And while the production and installation of every turbine has serious environmental costs, every reduction in consumption really does reduce fossil fuel use somewhere, while simultaneously reducing environmental impacts.
Renewables only make sense in tandem with drastic reductions in energy consumption, and are best implemented through small-scale, grid-free efforts. But what we have instead is corporations continuing to market the psychotic American dream – powered by ‘renewables’! This co-opted response to climate change is no longer about protecting nature from the ever expanding human nightmare, it is about sustaining the comforts and luxuries we feel entitled to. It is business-as-usual disguised as concern for the Earth. It is utterly empty, but it serves the destructive economy.
Though not Mckibben’s intent, this is what he implicitly supports.
Changing the Fuel Does Not Stop Ecocide
Climate change is a crisis, but it is only one of many ways the planet is being destroyed. Changing the fuel that runs the system that is killing the planet is not a solution. An effective response would resemble shifting towards the way Frank and Virginia lived. It won’t look ‘cool’, or stroke the attention-seeking narcissism of social media addicts, but it would have immediate benefits.
That shift will require a major rethinking of our lives and economy; it asks us to have the maturity, courage, humility and wisdom to put nature and her needs first. McKibben deserves credit for sounding the alarm about climate change early on, but now he should tell people the unvarnished truth: that if we cannot sacrifice our comforts, luxuries and rapid mobility because we love this Earth, then there really is no hope.
Suzanna Jones lives off grid on a small farm in Northern Vermont. She has been fighting injustice, destruction of the land, and industrial wind projects for decades and has been arrested several times.
Grassroots activist Suzanna Jones challenges the idea that green energy is good and rebukes the corporations and ideologically-captured organizations who promote it.
By Suzanna Jones
The recently released documentary Planet of the Humans takes direct aim at the major threat to the Earth.
It does this by asking fundamental questions: can Nature withstand continued industrial extraction; can humans – particularly those in the dominant West – persist in taxing the natural world to fulfill our own ‘needs’ and desires; is ‘green’ energy the savior for our climatic and environmental problems or is it a false prophet distracting us from confronting the gargantuan elephant in the room, what writer Wendell Berry calls “history’s most destructive economy”?
New roads built for the Lowell Wind Energy site in Vermont destroy and fragment important wildlife habitat for black bears, moose, and bobcat among others.
The film has struck a nerve. Those depicted unfavorably have reacted. Some who admit to having enjoyed Michael Moore’s filmmaking strategy in the past don’t find him so funny this time. The criticisms reveal how much power and money lie behind the renewables-as-savior myth. With so much at stake, the industry and big environmental organizations have little appetite for discussing or even acknowledging the unsavory side of the technologies. And ultimately, the core issues remain unaddressed; the most important things remain unspoken.
Sustaining the Planet vs. Sustaining Industrial Civilization
Frankly, the green energy ‘movement’ is really about sustaining our way of life and the economic system that it depends upon, not the health of the biosphere. Capitalism is brilliant at co-opting anything that resists it. Green energy – like much of the broader environmental movement – is no exception. It’s business-as-usual in camouflage.
Back when Green Mountain Power’s bulldozing and blasting began at Lowell Mountain, a group of locals organized ‘open-house’ walks up the mountain to view the devastation. Hundreds attended these fall/winter treks. Shock and heartbreak were the usual response. Bill McKibben was personally invited to attend. Though his response was polite, he would not be coming. He dismissed our concern for the mountain as “ephemeral.”
Ephemeral?
That word underscores what has gone so terribly wrong with green energy “environmentalism.” Something is absent. That something? Love. Love of the places and living beings that are suffering or being destroyed so that we can live our electronic, nature-less existence. Affection for the natural, non- human world is missing in the discussions about climate, carbon and techno-fixes. Nothing seems to matter now but humans and their desires.
“Although it’s morally wrong to destroy the land community, people are going to sustain it, not because it’s morally right but because they want to; affection is going to be the determining motive”, Wendell Berry has explained in the past. “Economic constraints might cancel out affection, but genuine affection is going to be the motivating cause.”
The Moral Basis of Organizing for Justice
Without affection, we’re more likely to thoughtlessly sacrifice living beings on the altar of economics. When the film reveals who is paying the ultimate price for our ‘green’ energy consumption, we recognize affection for the casualty it has become. We are half-asleep, anesthetized by the barrage of meaningless marketing, with its hollow premise that we can continue to consume our way to happiness.
As I was planting in the garden this warm, spring day, the returning swallows joyfully zipping overhead made me stop. Usually this ritual is accompanied by the background droning of distant car traffic, but due to the pandemic, the infernal engines were silent. It made me wonder. Can we live in healthy reciprocity with the natural world? Can we make the shared economic sacrifices that are necessary or will we continue to sacrifice Nature? Can we make drastic reductions in consumption and live more local, less materially prosperous, more fulfilling lives? Can we replace modernity’s painful alienation from Nature with a genuine sense of intimacy, affection, meaning and responsibility? Will those in power let us? Will we allow them to decide for us?
On of 21 wind turbine pads at Lowell Wind Project in Vermont.
Our way of life is inherently unsustainable. We can’t buy or build our way out of this one. Yes, the climate crisis is both undeniable and existential, but it is not the only way the Earth is being destroyed. Simply changing the fuel that powers our destructive, planet-killing system is not a solution.
Planet of the Humans challenges our assumptions and our arrogance. It asks us to face what we have done, experience the grief, and then allow our hearts to consider an entirely new path into the future.
Suzanna Jones lives off grid on a small farm in Northern Vermont. She has been fighting injustice, destruction of the land, and industrial wind projects for decades and has been arrested several times.
Wildlife images by Roger Irwin depict native wildlife near the site of a proposed wind energy facility on Seneca Mountain. That project was canceled due to community organizing in opposition. Aerial photographs by Steve Wright depict Lowell Wind Energy Facility. Check out this photo essay on the impact of “green” energy on mountain landscapes.
In this critical review, Elisabeth Robson reacts to the newly released environmental documentary Planet of the Humans. The film explains why technology won’t save us and leads viewers to question the industrial paradigm.
Liberals have been quick to attack the film, mistaking it for a pro-fossil or pro-nuclear fuel argument, and recognizing that critiquing “green” energy undermines the morality of their entire ideological project of “sustainable modern development.” The far-right has attempted to co-opt the message as well. Both are predictable and profoundly mistaken responses. See the end of this review for a few point-by-point rebuttals of these misrepresentations.
Our choice is not between “green” energy and fossil fuels. That is a false binary. We must choose between industrial destruction—including both ‘renewables’ and fossil fuels—and creating a biocentric future. We need revolutionary transformation of society, not superficial changes to the energy sources of empire. Planet of the Humans is not without flaws. No piece of media is. But it contributes critically to a movement too long dominated by cornucopian, anthropogenic industrial energy advocates.
Planet of the Humans: Why Technology Won’t Save Us
By Elisabeth Robson
Green energy is a false solution. That’s a nice way of putting it.
But green energy is the god of the left. And heaven forbid anyone from the left point out any of the pesky problems with this god. We expect that from people on the right; but the left? And now one of the left’s progressive heroes has gone and broken the rules and actually published an entire 1 hour and 40 minutes of documentary trashing this god. Needless to say, the backlash took less than 24 hours to begin.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
The documentary film is Planet of the Humans. The film is narrated and directed by Jeff Gibbs, and executive produced by Michael Moore. It stars renewable energy generation technologies wind and solar, along with biomass, and with, of course, the obligatory supporting role appearance from electric vehicles.
Jeff channels Michael well. He is not afraid to look behind the curtain to see the man, or rather the fossil fuels, running the show, or to ask the uncomfortable questions. “Well, that’s awkward,” I find myself saying several times throughout the film.
We begin, appropriately enough, with a reminder of the first Earth Day, 50 years ago today as I write this now. That first Earth Day inspired the filmmaker to become an environmental journalist, and he went through a phase, as many of us have done, wishing and hoping so hard that green energy will help us kick our addiction to fossil fuels and save the planet, that he actually believed it for a while.
Wind and solar.
He soon discovers the intermittency problem: you can’t generate energy from solar panels when the sun isn’t shining, or from wind turbines when the wind isn’t blowing. Well, yes, that is a well known problem. He then discovers that fossil fuel powered energy plants must be running at the ready to fill in the gaps when the wind dies and it rains or the sun sets for the evening, and of course you can’t just stop and start fossil fuel powered energy plants on a whim. What about batteries he asks? Yes, but… they degrade quickly and require a lot of resources to make. How about the resources to make the wind and solar panels? Right, that’s a problem too.
And the land where wind and solar is installed? Oh, yes, the vast tracts of land torn up for wind and solar is yet another problem. But it’s just desert right? “Just desert”… sure, if you think centuries old cactus and Joshua trees, wildflowers that color the hills red, yellow, and purple after spring rains, and lizard and tortoise and eagle and wolf habitat is “just desert.”
Prayer walk for sacred water in the Mojave desert, home to numerous indigenous nations, a wide array of biodiversity, springs, wildflowers, ungulates, tortoises, lizards, birds, and some of the more remote lands in North America. The Mojave’s most serious threats come from the military, urban sprawl, and industrial solar development. Photo by Max Wilbert.
Gibbs looks at electric vehicles, trotted out by car companies as proof of their green credentials, but of course if wind and solar aren’t powering the grid, then all you’ve done to power the EVs is move the gas from the gas tank to the power plant. Unfortunately, the car company executive put on the spot did not seem to know much about the power grid, only about how much PR she was getting from the press about the EV she’s announcing.
Next, we meet biomass. Compared to wind and solar this is a low(er) tech solution to powering the world, which we might initially think is better–along with Bill McKibben who is shown proudly touting the benefits of chopping up trees into bits and burning them in power plants–but it turns out that no, we can’t cut down all the trees on the planet to power our lifestyles without some, you know, downsides. We see the fossil fuel powered-machines killing beautiful old trees, and the smoke and CO2 rising from the stacks while hearing about how biomass is “carbon neutral,” from people who obviously don’t understand the difference between trees, and a healthy, thriving forest. We meet the community members subjected to biomass plants that are burning, along with trees, old tires and creosote-soaked railroad ties.
And all along the way, Jeff and his sidekick Ozzie Zehner, author of Green Illusions and co-producer of the film, ask the uncomfortable questions of the celebrities of the left: Van Jones, Bill McKibben, various big wigs at the Sierra Club, along with plenty of clips showing Al Gore at his hypocritical finest, touting capitalism and the profit he will be making personally if only we would invest more money in renewable technologies.
The only conclusion the viewer can draw by the end of the film is the inescapable fact, that no one on the left wants to admit: there is no get out of jail free card. There never was, and there never will be. As long as we try to tech, mine, build, and burn our way out of this mess, we will only make the problem worse.
Why technology won’t save us
While the film, Planet of The Humans focuses almost entirely on the problems of wind, solar, and biomass, and the corporate culture of profit surrounding these industries, we also understand that the filmmaker gets it–as in, the big picture. That it’s not just about climate change, air pollution, water pollution, or even corporate greed. It’s that even if we managed to miraculously replace all the grid energy and liquid fuels we use with so-called renewable sources of energy, it wouldn’t solve the fundamental issues at the heart of all these problems: that it is our industrial civilization and the relentless push for endless growth that is killing the planet. The film makers do not raise this point explicitly, but it is there for all to see if only we care to look. Just like these problems with renewables have been there all along, no matter how hard we try to ignore the fact that solar panels and wind turbines require massive amounts of metals mined out of the ground, ground that was once someone’s home, and is now destroyed; and no matter how hard we try to ignore that biomass is just a euphemism for dead trees, trees the same so-called environmentalists who invest in biomass energy plants tell us we must save in order to sequester CO2 and protect biodiversity.
The hypocrisy is stunning, as it always has been. We are all guilty of it to some degree–I know I am–but at least I can say that I’m trying to learn more, to keep an open but critical mind, and to spend the time to look more deeply at these issues. I’ve learned to not just take on faith the words of the corporate-backed and often fossil fuel-supported organizations mentioned in this film who tell me we can solve everything–have our cake and eat it too–if we just have enough green energy.
“Most chillingly of all, Gibbs at one stage of the film appears to suggest that there is no cure for any of this, that, just as humans are mortal, so the species itself is staring its own mortality in the face. But he appears to back away from that view by the end, saying merely that things need to change. But what things and how?
It’s not at all clear.”
Yes, this film makes the case that things need to change. What things? Everything. How? By shutting down the entire industrial machine.
The film never explicitly condemns industrial civilization as the root of our problems. However, as I said above, it is there to see for anyone who is paying attention. I might wish it had been stated explicitly and directly, but this message is hard to miss. The point of the film is that everything about how we live on this planet needs to change, and deluding ourselves about how we can continue life as we know it powered by green energy is not just a waste of time; it is criminal. Only by acknowledging this truth can we put aside the fantasy of green energy and begin to formulate real solutions. And yes, the real solutions mean shutting down the entire industrial machine. Not just fossil fuels, but everything: all the mining, the logging, the industrial fishing, the industrial agriculture… everything. It’s all got to change.
The lesson, and the moral of the story, is that we (humans) will be entirely to blame for our own demise, when it comes, if we continue down the path of using massive amounts of energy–no matter how that energy is generated–to expand our ecocidal footprint on this planet.
I hold my breath as the end of the film approaches. Will this film, like so many others, try to end on an optimistic note? The green god of the left requires optimism to end all his religious services, don’t you know.
No. This film, unlike so many others, manages to avoid the tragedy of ending with delusional optimism. We see instead the tragedy of rainforests decimated, rainforests that orangutans call home. The tragedy of lives lost to human greed and cruelty; the desperation, sadness, and confusion written all over the faces of those beautiful beings who remind us so much of ourselves.
It is the perfect, heart-wrenching ending to this film: we understand, without any words being spoken, that green energy, along with the many other horrors of our industrial civilization, is killing us and all life on this beautiful planet we call home.
False Critique #1: The film uses inaccurate information, for example about CSP (Concentrated Solar Power)
Critic: “It is stated correctly in the movie that the Ivanpah concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in California requires a natural gas power source to start it up every morning. Other CSP plants do not, however. And newer CSP designs, like the one operating at Crescent Dunes solar plant in Nevada since 2009, use molten salt to store enough of the sun’s heat to keep the generators running all night long.”
Robson: Most CSPs here in the USA have been an utter failure, including Crescent Dunes, which seems to be shut down now. The plant never managed to achieve its expected monthly output, and was entirely shut down for 8 months of its short life because of a leak in the molten salt thermal storage tank.
In addition, CSP plants are incredibly destructive to the land where they are installed. Typically the land is cleared of all life, like you see in the movie… which means habitat and homes lost for countless beings who lived on that land previously. When wildlife people try to relocate the desert tortoises that often live in these locations, not many survive. They fence off the land so the tortoises can’t get back in. And birds that fly through the hottest part of the light as it’s collected can sometimes burn to death.
I wonder if all that infrastructure is still sitting there, trashing up the desert? Certainly the soil and life they destroyed putting it up will take a very very long time to recover even if the infrastructure is eventually removed.
And none of this changes the fact that it requires metals and materials and fuel to build and maintain these things, that they are very low density sources of energy, and incredibly inefficient, consist of toxic waste at the end of their life spans, are designed to power the grid and our lifestyles that depend on the grid, which is unsustainable over the long term.
Laura Cunningham, Wildlife Biologist (comment from Facebook): Ten years ago I fought to save Ivanpah Valley and stop that monstrous solar power tower. This movie is accurate–the Sierra Club supported building the utility-scale solar project on the wildflower fields, translocating the desert tortoises, and ignoring my Chemehuevi elder friends who said every plant in the desert there is medicinal or edible. Ivanpah means “White clay water” in Paiute-Chemehuevi. I watched them bulldoze an ancient trail and archaeology. More giant solar projects are planned in the desert this year, this needs to stop.
False Critique #2: The film unfairly attacks certain figures
Critic: “It is hugely disingenuous, and frankly misleading, to hide in the credits at the end of a movie the fact that two of the leading organizations being damned in the movie for their support of biomass as a “green” energy source (350.org and Sierra Club) do not, in fact, support biomass any more. Bill McKibben deserves an apology for being misrepresented in this film …”
Robson: I feel the film maker gave Bill McKibben ample opportunity to refute his prior support of biomass *on film*. The film shows proof that Bill once did support it, whole-heartedly. Since the film came out McKibben has written this to say that while he used to support biomass, he no longer does: https://350.org/response-planet-of-the-humans-documentary/
Sierra Club has a page on biomass, where they state: “We believe that biomass projects can be sustainable, but that many biomass projects are not.”
Both 350.org and Sierra Club, and Bill McKibben personally, do whole-heartedly support “renewables,” including wind and solar.
350.org‘s main mission is “A fast & just transition to 100% renewable energy for all”, and their primary focus is climate change. The number one item on Sierra Club’s “issues” page is “Climate & Energy”, and speaking for the Sierra Club, ED Michael Brune said: “The booming clean energy economy is helping people create a better future for themselves and their families while, at the same time, helping to tackle the climate crisis that threatens our collective future. Workers see new job opportunities, communities see thriving local economies, and the American people see the inevitable transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.”
It is good that 350.org and Sierra Club and Bill McKibben have improved their stances on biomass; and certainly these organizations do some good work. But their support for “clean energy” will perpetuate our unsustainable lifestyles, and, as the film points out, is likely tied to corporate investment in these and related technologies, as well as the mining, extraction, refining, batteries, grids, etc. technologies that go with them.
Also, a personal note: I think using the word “biomass” to refer to trees, or plants, or whatever life form it refers to, is a horrific way to look at the natural world. It’s like using the word “resources” instead of trees, water, fish, etc. It turns real living beings into objects, and is a huge part of the problem.
False Critique #3: The film endorses problematic ideas of population control
Critic: “Like many environmental documentaries, “Planet of Humans” endorses debunked Malthusian ideas that the world is running out of energy. ‘We have to have our ability to consume reigned in,’ says a well-coiffed environmental leader. ‘Without some major die-off of the human population there is no turning back,’ says a scientist.”
I do not recall anyone in the movie advocating for one-child policies, or any other draconian population policies. I personally felt like the population issue was a relatively minor point in the film compared to the points about solar, wind, and biomass. [Population is discussed for a few minutes during the 100 minute film].
It is very clear that 8 billion humans would not exist without massive amounts of fossil fuels. I don’t think many would argue with that at this point (and if you have a cogent argument, I’d like to see it). In addition, several studies have recently shown that we humans have transformed a large proportion of the Earth in modern times. We have reduced wilderness areas to almost nothing, and wildlife to almost nothing.
So yeah, population is a problem. I thought the film did a fairly good job of raising it as an issue without being particularly “Malthusian” about it (in the pejorative sense that word is used today).
Elisabeth Robson is a radical feminist and a part of DGR.
Walden, Vermont–In his 2008 book Deep Economy, Bill McKibben concludes that economic growth is the source of the ecological crises we face today. He explains that when the economy grows larger than necessary to meet our basic needs – when it grows for the sake of growth, automatically striving for “more” – its social and environmental costs greatly outweigh any benefits it may provide.
Unfortunately, McKibben seems to have forgotten what he so passionately argued just five years ago. Today he is an advocate of industrial wind turbines on our ridgelines: he wants to industrialize our last wild spaces to feed the very economy he fingered as the source of our environmental problems.
His key assumption is that industrial wind power displaces the use of coal and oil, and therefore helps limit climate change. But since 2000, wind facilities with a total capacity equivalent to 350 coal-fired power plants have been installed worldwide, and today there are more – not fewer – coal-fired power plants operating. (In Vermont, the sale of Renewable Energy Credits to out-of-state utilities enables them to avoid mandates to reduce their fossil fuel dependency, meaning that there is no net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.) At best, industrial wind simply adds more energy to the global supply. And what for? More! More energy than the grid can carry, more idiotic water parks, more snowmaking, more electronic gadgets, more money for corporations.
Why should we spend millions of dollars to destroy wildlife habitat, kill bats and eagles, pollute our headwaters, fill valuable wetlands, polarize our communities, make people sick, mine rare earth metals – just to ensure that we can consume as much or more next year than we did this year?
The costs of industrial wind far outweigh the benefits… unless you are a wind developer. Federal production tax credits and other subsidies have fostered a gold rush mentality among wind developers, who have been abetted by political and environmental leaders who want to appear “green” without challenging the underlying causes of our crises. Meanwhile, average Vermonters find themselves without any ability to protect their communities or the ecosystems of which they are part. The goal of an industrial wind moratorium is to stop the gold rush so we can have an honest discussion on these issues. Why does this frighten proponents of big wind? Because once carefully examined, industrial wind will be exposed for the scam that it is.
McKibben’s current attitude towards the environment has been adopted by politicians, corporations, and the big environmental organizations. Environmentalism has been successfully mainstreamed, at the cost of its soul. This co-opted version isn’t about protecting the landbase from the ever-expanding empire of humans. It’s about sustaining the comfort levels we feel entitled to without exhausting the resources required. It is entirely human-centered and hollow, and it serves corporate capitalism well.
In Deep Economy, McKibben points out that the additional “stuff” provided by an ever-growing economy doesn’t leave people happier; instead, the source of authentic happiness is a healthy connection to nature and community. As Vermonters have already discovered, industrial wind destroys both.
What industrial wind represents should be obvious to everyone: this is business-as-usual disguised as concern for the Earth. Far from genuine “environmentalism”, it is the same profit- and growth-driven destruction that is at the root of every ecological crisis we face.
Suzanna Jones is an off-the-grid farmer living in Walden. She was among those arrested protesting the Lowell wind project in 2011.
Editor’s note: This is the second part of an edited transcript of a talk given at the 2017 Public Interest Environmental Law Conference. Read Part One here. Watch the video here.
A question that a lot of radical environmentalists ask ourselves is, “where is your threshold for resistance?” Particularly given the recent U.S. presidential election, people in so many communities with a lot at stake, with a lot to lose, and not a lot of choice, have been doing much of the harder and riskier work as front-line activists.
Latinos are taking action in courts, schools, and town halls. Women of color are taking action, black and brown people are taking action, and indigenous people are taking action. Since the U.S Presidential election it has been good to see other people with less to lose take steps, and sometimes leaps, out of the spaces of privilege they occupy in order to stand up and speak up against injustice–against violations of people of color, of women and girls, of Spanish-speakers, of immigrants, of undocumented people, and so many others.
In Eugene, Oregon, I’ve also seen many people new to activism come out to learn about direct action and community organizing, because they want to defend the land they love, but a lot of times don’t know how.
This gives me brief moments of hope and yet I’m still terrified, and still very certain that nothing short of a unified global movement of all kinds of people ready to resist and fight back, to protect the land they love, the air we breathe, the water we need, and all of the animals on the planet, will be enough to give us any say at all in how and when this culture collapses.
Some of the ramifications of environmental activists and movements dedicating themselves to promoting energy efficiency include strengthening the existing culture, i.e., industrial civilization, by correcting contradictions that stand out between ideals and practices, or policy and practices, within the dominant culture.
This also provides an unproductive outlet for activist revolutionary anger that only serves to pacify us and detract us from more materially impactful work that we could be doing as activists. Thinking about the global crises that we are currently facing, including deforestation, peak oil, water drawdown, soil loss, food crises, overfishing, desertification are often framed in the media and in popular and academic discourse as disparate or coincidental issues.
We know, however, that all of these crises are interrelated. These are some of the ways in which we can collectively characterize these crises:
They are progressive – they are rapid, but not instant, which can lead to what is called “shifting baseline syndrome.” That is, we get accustomed to a new norm, a new kind of way of living, and we lose sight of a previous issue like destruction of forests or water drawdown.
These crises are non-linear, runaway or self-sustaining, they have long lead and lag-times, which really impedes any kind of activism that’s focused on long-term solutions or long-term planning.
They have a deeply rooted momentum and they are industrially-driven, and they benefit the powerful, and cost the powerless.
They often yield temporary victories, but permanent losses, particularly losses to the planet.
The proposed solutions to these crises often make things worse, as in the case of energy efficiency measures. Here is quote by Aric McBay that really resonates with me. In the book “Deep Green Resistance” he writes:
Even though analysts who look at the big picture globally may use large amounts of data, they often refuse to ask deeper or more uncomfortable questions. The hasty enthusiasm for industrial biofuels is one manifestation of this. Biofuels have been embraced by some as a perfect ecological replacement for petroleum. The problems with this are many, but chief among them is the simple fact that growing plants for vehicle fuel takes land the planet simply can’t spare. Soy, palm, and sugar cane plantations for oil and ethanol are now driving the destruction of tropical rainforest in the Amazon and Southeast Asia…This so-called solution to the catastrophe of petroleum ends up being just as bad—if not worse—than petroleum.
Let’s look at some traits of ineffective solutions:
Ineffective solutions tend to reinforce existing power disparities. These solutions tend to be based on capitalism as a guiding principle and goal. Anything that has as its primary goal to increase productivity, to make more money, is necessarily going to be an ineffective solution when it comes to the health of the planet.
These solutions suppress autonomy or sustainability that impede profit. For example, suggestions of voluntary changes for corporations to undertake are not going to be carried out, because it doesn’t serve their best interest, which is to increase their profit, to make more money.
They rely on techno-fixes, or technological and political elites. For example, photovoltaic solar panels, which in the process of creating them uses more energy and causes further environmental harm.
They encourage consumption and increasing consumption and population growth.
They attempt to solve one problem without regard to the interconnected problems. “Solving” the energy crisis with corn-derived ethanol destroys more land and causes water drawdown, with a very low yield of ethanol.
They involve great delay and postpone action. A good example of this is the Paris Climate Accords. Every day, the gap between human population and the earth’s carrying capacity increases. The goals are set for 2025 or 2050–by the time we even get there, that gap will be exponentially greater.
They tend to focus on changing individual lifestyles, such as buying more efficient light bulbs. This consumer deception: if you buy more of the right things, you can save the planet.
They tend to be based on token, symbolic, or trivial actions. For example, an activist group acknowledges the problem of industrial civilization, but then the only action they take is to sign a petition, or to grow their own food. Those things might be great things for individuals for consciousness-raising, finding community, and expressing ourselves, but they are very disconnected from the material impact of civilization on the planet.
They tend to be focused on superficial or secondary causes, like overpopulation instead of over-consumption. For this particular point, it also tends to be a very racist approach in looking at how to save the planet, because the blame tends to be put on indigenous and brown and black communities who have the most to lose, and the least control over this system of empire.
Finally, these ineffective solutions tend to not be consonant with the severity of the problem, the window of time available to act, or the number of people expected to act.
Let’s talk a little bit about what effective solutions could look like. Effective solutions need to address root problems with global understanding. We need to acknowledge the interconnected aspect of all of these crises that are occurring around the planet.
Effective solutions involve a higher level of strategic rigor. But they also enable many different people to address the problem and ask themselves what they’re able to risk, what they can offer. Can you risk your body, can you risk your family, can you risk your job? Or not? It is necessary to locate our position on that spectrum and figure out how we can best use our skills to end the crisis.
Effective solutions are suitable to the scale of the problem, the lead time for action, and the number of people expected to act. If you know you need 25 people to pull off a blockade of a coal train and you don’t have 25 people, then plan a different action. Be realistic.
Effective solutions tend to involve immediate action and long-term action planning, make maximum use of available levers and fulcrums (planned to make as big of an impact as possible), playing to the strengths of the people involved, and targeting the weaknesses of the system.
Finally, they must work directly and indirectly to take down civilization, which is the overall goal. This leads to a discussion of another obstacle to effective solutions: the conflict between reformist and revolutionary perspectives.
Reformists, those who advocate for change through reform, tend to consider the existing system as functional but flawed, and believe it can be modified to address the issue at hand.
Reformists tend to be willing to employ legal and socio-politically sanctioned approaches to changing the system or addressing the problem, like legislations, petitions, grassroots organizing. Reformists also tend to focus on separate issues.
There are some limitations to this. A reformist focuses on correcting contradictions within the system, and thus redirects revolutionary anger to less materially-impactful solutions. On the other hand, both revolution and reform can have a place in the type of activism that leads to effective solutions.
Revolutionists consider the existing system to be the root of the problem, and believe that it must be dismantled and replaced. Revolutionists are willing to employ resistance strategies through whatever means are most effective. Rather than working within a particular legal framework, revolutionists are willing to employ strategies that may or may not be legal toward the goal of saving the planet.
Revolutionists see this system, this culture as the primary issue. We advocate that those working toward reform and those working toward revolution, or anywhere within that spectrum, identify points of overlap in their goals and strategies, in order to better work together.
This might look like activists who utilize legislative channels to prevent the shipment of fossil fuels through their municipality, while front-line activists block coal trains and offer direct action training for others to do those same actions.
What do we mean by fighting back? We mean thinking and feeling for ourselves, finding who and what we love, figuring out how to defend what we love, and using any means necessary and appropriate. This involves calling out the problem, in this case the dire circumstances caused by industrial civilization for life on the planet; identifying the goal, for example, depriving the rich and powerful of the ability to destroy the planet, and defending and rebuilding just and sustainable human communities within repaired and restored landbases.
In our communities and around the world, great people are doing great work in the name of saving the planet. More people are marching in protest than before, more people are writing letters, signing petitions, making calls, and organizing at the grassroots level. More people are seeing clearly, and more people are learning the language to speak about what they see.
And yet, more animals go extinct every day, and more areas of the earth become uninhabitable for so many animals, including humans. The salmon are dying, the forests are dying, the rivers are dying, the oceans are dying, and people are dying, all around the world, because of industrial civilization.
Since the last US presidential election, more people are speaking out about the climate crisis through social media, in town halls, in their homes, in neighborhoods and schools. And yet, the earth’s temperature rose again last year, and the Bramble Cays Melomys went extinct due to climate change last year. So did the San Cristobal Vermillion flycatcher.
San Cristobal Vermillion flycatcher
The Rabb’s Treefrog went extinct. And the Stephan’s Riffle Beetle. And the Tatum Cave Beetle. And the Barbados Racer Snake. And 13 more bird species went extinct. And the list goes on.
As environmental activists, we know what is at stake: all life on the planet. We know, too, that an environmental and cultural movement grounded in energy efficiency is, simply put, not enough, and often incites further planetary harm. I’d like to read a quote by one of my favorite writers and thinkers, Rebecca Solnit, a writer, feminist, philosopher and activist:
Our country is now headed by white supremacist nativist misogynist climate-denying nature-hating authoritarians who want to destroy whatever was ever democratic and generous-spirited in this country, meaning that it’s a good time to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, to keep your eyes on the prize, and to commit to the long term process of taking it all back. Because even after Trump topples, which could happen soon, remaking the stories and the structures is a long term project that matters. It is not ever going to finish, so you can pace yourself, celebrate milestones and victories, and get over any idea of arrival and going home. Most of the change will be incremental, and the lives of most great changemakers show us people who persisted for decades, whether or not the way forward looked clear, easy, or even possible. This is also a remarkable moment in which many people you and I might have disagreed with in safer times are also horrified, are allies in some of the important work to be done, and worth reaching out to to find what we have in common. “The word emergency comes from emerge, to rise out of, the opposite of merge, which comes from mergere: to be within or under a liquid, immersed, submerged. An emergency is a separation from the familiar, a sudden emergence into a new atmosphere, one that often demands we ourselves rise to the occasion.” This is an emergency. How will you emerge?
We will leave you with a brief analysis of a poem by Adrienne Rich, the poet, essayist, and radical feminist who died just a few years ago. This poem is called “North American Time” and it’s taken from a collection published in 1986, in which she argues for a kind of ethical imagination, that I think applies to our argument for moving beyond energy efficiency, towards the end of halting climate change and the destruction of the planet.
The poem begins as the speaker, a woman of color, reflects on her growing realization of having been systematically silenced and pacified by the culture of empire:
When my dreams showed signs
of becoming
politically correct
no unruly images
escaping beyond border
when walking in the street I found my
themes cut out for me
knew what I would not report
for fear of enemies’ usage
then I began to wonder…
She goes on to describe the power and permanency of written words, and of the verbal privilege in being able to write, or to act, in a public, enduring way. In the third section, she challenges the reader to do the impossible: to imagine herself outside the context of history, of planetary life, of accountability.
try telling yourself
you are not accountable
to the life of your tribe
the breath of your planet
It doesn’t matter what you think.
Words are found responsible
all you can do is choose them
or choose
to remain silent. Or, you never had a choice,
which is why the words that do stand
are responsible
and this is verbal privilege.
Here and throughout the poem, Rich calls out the silent bystander, the privileged witness who sees and knows that great injustice is being perpetrated, and yet doesn’t speak, doesn’t act, doesn’t intervene. Central to this poem is Rich’s profound understanding that words, rather than thoughts, are ultimately found responsible. I think the same holds true for actions in the context of environmental activism.
Our actions will be what endure, not the thoughts we had, or the plans we made, or the feelings we had about the destruction of the planet. Also central to this poem is Rich’s compelling portrayal of the disjuncture between those who have a choice, the more privileged, and those who don’t.
As activists, we need to first understand our own relative privileges and then acknowledge that being male; being white; being an English-speaker; being a citizen; being wealthy, are not innate. They are a direct result of the culture of empire, of a culture grounded in institutionalized racism, misogyny, and omnicide.
The salmon, who have all but disappeared, didn’t have a choice. The Kalapuya, whose land we occupy here today, didn’t have a choice. The forests don’t have a choice, nor the bees, nor the rivers.
What choices do you all have? We encourage all of you to reflect on these words as a call to action, as a call to re-evaluate the words we use, and the stances we take, to assess whether or not they truly coincide with our deepest, most intimate hope for the future of ourselves, of the planet, and of this world.
We ask all of you to think long and hard about how you would like to emerge, and then we ask you to act, in a way that feels intentional and possible, and significant to you, and most importantly, for all life on this planet.
