Being a genuine environmentalist myself since my early teens–that is, four decades before I begun being interested in politics–I don’t think any single human being can lecture me on what loving nature and respecting the planet does mean. Except for my admitted venial sin of wearing for some time an “anti-nuclear” badge (I remember it perfectly: a red, smiling, beaming sun on yellow background, and the reading “¿Nuclear? No, gracias”), which I hope I will be forgiven, since I was only too young and still didn’t know that–though very dangerous–nuclear is one of the cleanest energy sources our civilization has come up with, for the rest of my life I have followed the most nature-friendly habits compatible with a decent quality of life. Besides, given that I studied a good deal of chemistry and thermodynamics at college, and then air physics (meteorology), which was my profession for three lustrums, I believe I have a fairly reasonable idea of both what is more and less polluting, and what heats up, and what does not, the atmosphere so as to cause global warming.
I spontaneously developed this concern for ecology out of my own romanticism, love for nature and fondness of rural lifestyles way before the “green movement” gained the popularity they have today. As a matter of fact, during my youth I was so naïve that, for many years, I nursed the idea of becoming a Jeremiah Johnson revived… Poor me! But that is another story. My point now is: when the Green agenda bursted into our socio-political life, I immediately smelled the hoax and begun despising the so-called environmentalists. Not that I believe this agenda’s main slogan to be false: for purely technical reasons (on which I will not elaborate here), it turns out that global warming is a well-measured and undeniable fact among scientists, plus I am positive that, for the most part, it is man-made. But this fact does not make the Green agenda less of a fraud. Why? Because it does not address the main issue, and because it entails so many contradictions. For the sake of brevity, in this article I’ll only mention three.
(Image: colorado.edu)
1.- Stuff. To begin with, we have the “recycling” mantra. Any true conservationist is acquainted with, at the very least, the really green Three Cmmandments of Stuff (the “Re” rules), which in order of relevance are:
- – Reducing consumption
- – Reusing stuff
- – Recycling waste
Hence, out of those three, reducing consumption is, by far, the most important measure for a sustainable economy. The less stuff we buy, the less will be produced and the less litter will be generated; and this in the proportion 1 to 1, which is the highst achievable ratio. The trillions of tons of non-biodegradable waste we dump on our mistreated planet every year are the main cause for soil and water contamination (fresh and sea). However, the Green agenda never deemed this measure a priority and, in point of fact, very seldom mentions it. You see, consumption means profit.
Reusing stuff is second in the list, as it always involves some amount of new stuff. And, yet, it is a very eco-effective practice. Mending a shirt, for instance, only takes a bit of thread as new material; not to say buying second-hand clothes (which is what I do whenever possible): in used-clothes shops one can find pretty new garments (often with the label still attached to them) for negligible money and virtually zero environmental impact. But again, reusing stuff is very rarely advocated by the Green architects for the same reason as above: it results in less consumption, which means less profit.
And last we have recycling waste, which is, by a landslide, the least effective of the three for reducing our carbon-footprint; to the point that, sometimes, it can be even more polluting than newly manufactured goods. Actually, it is an industry in itself! You need recycling plants with their machinery, inputs, fuel, electricity, parts, warehouses, collect points and disposal bins, labour force, chemicals, transport, legislation, inspections… a whole social, administrative and industrial apparatus. I often wonder, for instance, what is the carbon-footprint of recycled paper as compared with new one (or why is it then more expensive?) I have not studied the ecological impact of recycling, but by some estimates I can conclude that, depending on what items, it may be as bad, or worse, than just buying new ones. However, being the less efficient than reducing and reusing, this is about the only “Re” rule the Green folks constantly address and encourage. You see, recycling means profit.
(Image: finance.yahoo.com)
2.- CO2 emissions. Then we have the CO2 mantra, regarding wich the contradictions pile up much higher.
In order to–allegedly–reduce CO2 emissions, the Green agenda takes painstaking efforts to impose on us the production of “cleaner” energy and drastic changes in our life habits; but, lo and behold!, the Green Kommissars always travel in private or government jets (even for their Green summits!) instead of using the public transport they preach for the rest of us. Not only they do not walk their talk (as they would do, should they believe in their own gospel), but it is extremely arguable that the “planet damage” for that alleged clean energy is lower than that for hydrocarbons. I am still to find a single thorough study, available to the public, proving that point. I appreciate if any reader can help me to get such a paper.
To begin with, solar and wind energy (the other alternative clean sources–except nuclear–being negligible) require plates and generators whose manufacturing is, in turn, highly detrimental for the environment, and whose disposal–by the end of their lifespan–is even more harmful. Where do all the worn out solar plates and wind generators go? Not to mention the millions of birds and bats killed by the generators’ blades or the dreadful landscape damage by the solar farms. I very much doubt the benefits for the atmosphere pay off the environmental costs. But you see, manufacturing generators and plates means profit.
The same goes for electric vehicles: by overtaxing (and eventually altogether banning) fossil fuels, we are forced to purchase new cars much before our “old” ones reach the end of their usable life; which means that, for a couple of decades, there will be an excess of vehicles on the planet, which amounts to generation of double extra pollution: for producing the new cars, and for disposing of, or recycling, the–still working–“old” ones. Besides, there is the bateries issue, whose manufacturing and “recycling” (or disposal) is also quite polluting and poisonous. And the worst of all incongruities in this subject: at the end of the day, the electricity for powering such vehicles has to be generated somehow, somewhere; and until we be able to produce it by really clean means, we still have to burn fossil fuels! Electric cars only shift the pollution place from “under the driver” to the power stations. So, it is a perverse falsehood to present electric cars as “eco-friendly”. But, you see, making innecessary vehicles means profit.
(Image: marine-offshore.bureauveritas.com)
3.- Commerce routes. And now, with the excuse of the war in Donbass, we have the sanctions to Russia, introducing yet another two glaring contradictions to the green principles.
Russia provided the Collective West (mainly Europe, but not only) with lightly polluting natural gas and with raw materials (mainly grain, minerals and fertilizers). To compensate for this loss, the Green engineers (who are the same that fostered and fuel up this war) come up now, on one hand, with the most brazen and barefaced of incoherences: let us burn coal to fuck Putin. Apparently, the coal burnt for “supporting” Ukraine does not emit CO2, sulphur nor ashes. Why not the Black New Deal?
But on the other hand, all the stuff Europe previously imported from Russia at a not-too-big carbon footprint (as it was shipped either by land or sea along relatively short routes) has now to travel by sea or air from much farther parts of the world, thereby enormously increasing pollution. I worked as a freight-ship engineer for one year. A cargo vessel is one of the most contaminating monsters on earth: not only are they powered by the dirtiest of fuels (often pure tar, heated up so it does not solidify in the tanks and pipes), but constantly bail out their bilges onto the sea, leaving a trail of nauseating oils of all kinds. Now, how environmentally friendly is it to double or triple the average shipping distance for transporting all those billions of tons of products? And the warmongers plan on maintaining these new energy-inefficient commerce routes until they manage to split Russia in fifteen micro states! God help us.
Not to mention the war itself, which is no small source of pollution: trucks, tanks, arms, jets, troops transported up and down, fires, explosions, buildings/vehicles/oil deposits in flames… all so very eco-friendly. But you see, the war means profit… and some other evil and real designs, quite different from “saving the planet”.
Molten Salt Reactor (Image: researchgate.net)
Finally, I will just mention (though will not elaborate on it) the infinitely cleaner and safer nuclear energy generated by MSNRs (molten salt nuclear reactors), powered by Thorium, a technology successfully developed in Oak Ridge during WW2 that was aftewards ditched because of it uselessness for achieving the nuclear bomb. The project was not retaken later on because it would have provided humankind with the cheapest energy our civilization might ever dream of having; and the Green New Deal folks will never tell us about it because, you see, cheap energy means less profit. (Thanks God China is for some years now doing a good deal of R+D in that field and I hope that, eventually, they will implement such reactors at fully operational level. This, and no other, will be the only energy revolution of the 21st century… But that, too, is another story.)
(Image: humansarefree.org)
So, did you spot the pattern? Profit, profit and profit. This ubiquitous connection between the main “measures” for a “sustainable development” and PROFIT leads inevitably to conclude that the Green agenda is a formidable hoax, and that its very creators do not believe a word of it.
And still, why are the Green gurus so intersted in de-carbonizing Europe, as if they were really buying their own green religion? That I do not understand.