This is part 7 of A Climate Counternarrative.
Given the misdiagnosis at the heart of the climate narrative, and how little data supports it, there is simply no case to track, tax, offset, sequester, or curb the carbon emissions tied to consumption or industrialized activities. That could have been the takeaway from this discussion, but the solutions on offer are so egregious that they warrant getting called out too.
The calls to phase out fossil fuels make no sense. There are good reasons to not like energy or mining corporations. These include the pollution, the environmental destruction, the foretold calamity of deep sea mining, the water use, the military ties, the way they fuel imperialism, or the way they empower sociopaths. But then, industrial food depends on natural gas, diesel, coal, nitrates, phosphorus, and phosphate. Blind calls to phase out fossil fuels will just dislocate economies and create food shortages. Cities could end up eating algae and bugs grown in their own sewage.
The efforts to sequester carbon underground make no sense either. The need to build pipelines strips farmers from productive lands, and plants could soak up the carbon dioxide anyway. The actual stake is that fossil fuel corporations stand to pocket carbon offsets for pumping this carbon dioxide underground. Oil comes up when you pump pressurized gas in wells, so this is a subsidy in disguise. Anticipate demands to end other fossil fuel subsidies in retaliation. The retirees who depend on winter fuel payments will not be impressed.
Green tech doesn’t make sense even when you take the narrative at face value. To wit, even the International Energy Agency is fully aware that the logistics don’t add up. Or perhaps amused staffers were just trolling the controlled opposition forces who hope petitions will stop the mining. The carbon signatures leave out costs, too. Some omissions are in good faith, since not all green tech waste can be recycled. But what of the long-term health costs tied to living near a landfill, a polluting facility, or a mine? Or of the militarized efforts needed to impose a mine on locals to begin with?
Green tech makes far more sense when you look into the link between it, mining, and military imperialism. Mining fuels military operations to secure access to mining resources, and the military are mining’s best customers. Mining conflicts are unique in that you cannot open the mine elsewhere if locals don’t agree. Locals need to get evicted, and locals further out who deal with the environmental destruction need to be kept in check. Miners use militarized guards because these conflicts can become violent.
Conservancies make more sense in that light too. They acquire land using eminent domain laws or by tricking locals. Affected locals then get cleared out and kept in check using militarized park guards. These areas become tourist parks, so the guards sometimes leave huts behind for authenticity. Parks double as big game hunting reserves for rich elites. Parts of these nature reserves get set aside for afforestation projects (palm, rubber, and teak plantations) and mining projects (green-tech, or other). “Protecting” nature is lucrative even before the grants, donations, or carbon offsets.
Conservancies are a continuation of imperialism through different means, if anything. In the past, imperialists would use military conquest to clear out locals, move out resources, and move in finished products. Corporations do the same using the legal system. The World Bank and the World Trade Organization are key. The first’s explicit mandate is to replace subsistence farming with industrialized activities. The other puts unsubsidized small farmers in poor countries out of business. The two are transparently about controlling land. And so are conservancies.
A Climate Counternarrative | Next: Sustainable Injustice
About the Author
Denis de Bernardy is the author of A Natural Language. His work exposes environmental big lies and puts solutions in front of the actual problems.
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