Green Illusion
The documentary produced by Michael Moore, written and directed by Jeff Gibbs, Planet of the Humans, raises an important neglected issue in the environmental debate, referred to as the green illusion, the limits of green or so-called clean technologies. The fight against climate change has been associated with green technologies, such as biofuels, wind and solar energy, and electric cars. The use and investments made in these green technologies have increased worldwide.
The basic idea is that these technologies, labeled as green or clean, would contribute effectively and sufficiently to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and solving environmental and social problems. These technologies would generate green jobs and income and would also reduce environmental impacts, forming the lifeline of the capitalist society’s standard of living.
It turns out that the environmental issue, first, is not just about emissions, but involves a wide range of environmental impacts resulting from human activities, such as deforestation, loss of biodiversity, degradation by mining, chemical pollution, among others. Second, the Law of Entropy — 2nd Law of Thermodynamics shows, in an irrefutable way, that there is no green or clean technology as sold by capitalists and some “environmentalists” because there is no perpetual motion machine technology.
Finally, the resolution of social problems goes through a profound change in the structure of appropriation of the benefits generated by the economic system. Investments in green technologies under the prevailing economic and social base are not able to reduce inequality. In fact, the green illusion can exacerbate inequality by overexploiting non-renewable natural resources, increasing the costs of producing and consuming basic goods and services in the poorest societies, among others. The increase in inequality, as shown by Thomas Piketty in his study Capital in the 21st century, presents an increasing tendency in the capitalist system, therefore, it constitutes a structural problem.
In this context, the important limitations of green technologies have not been discussed in academia and the media, therefore, in society, in the formulation of public policy, or in the private sector. The lack of reflection on the limitations of these technologies has created a true green illusion in society, encouraging production and consumption without remorse — without considering environmental and social losses. Economic growth is now green and clean, so green technologies offer a win-win solution: increased production and consumption, accompanied by environmental and social improvement.
Green technologies, in fact, have become a business like any other in the capitalist system, whose objective remains only to maintain the growth of economies — measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and, of course, monetary profit. Not even the private sector believes that these green technologies are the solution to environmental and social issues, as shown in Michael Moore’s documentary, Planet of the Humans.
The production of biofuels, such as biodiesel and ethanol, is carried out on a non-renewable basis, in addition to resulting in other environmental and social impacts on its agricultural and industrial processes. In the agricultural system, despite technological advances, for example, the continuous need to expand the production frontier (new areas or replacement of crops), increasing use of agrochemicals (fertilizers and pesticides) and machinery, and the intensive use of soil and water, which have increased the pressure on natural resources without precedent.
In the Brazilian case, for example, between 1990 and 2018, the area planted with soy and sugarcane, two important inputs to produce biofuels, increased 182%, from 15.9 million hectares to 44.9 million — 29 million increase[1]. This increase in the area represents a territory equivalent to three times the area of Portugal! This territorial expansion has intensified land and environmental conflicts in Brazil. Unfortunately, the Brazilian government has contributed to this increase with the dismantling of the entire environmental and social protection system. In the same period (1990–2018), estimates indicate that the deforested area in the Amazon Biome totaled 40.1 million hectares; in the Cerrado 22.1 million[2]. These regions are home to an important portion of the cultivated area in Brazil, known as the world’s breadbasket.
Similar dynamics are observed in the use of agrochemicals (fertilizers and pesticides), which are mostly of non-renewable origin. In 2017, Brazilian agriculture used 16.6 million tons in fertilizers of non-renewable origin, 84% of which was imported; in terms of pesticides, it was 337.2 thousand tons, 77% of which was imported. Not to mention the contamination caused by the excessive and intensive use of these agrochemicals in the soil, water, atmosphere, animals, and human health[3]. This is not an exclusive feature of Brazil, but it is repeated in the main agricultural countries in the world.
Modern agriculture does not exist without the use (growing and intensive) of agrochemicals to compensate for the loss of soil nutrients and the natural control of pests and diseases.
Even wind and solar generation systems and electric cars are not immune to the degradation of environmental quality and social problems. The manufacture of wind generation systems, photovoltaic panels, electric cars, and their accessories is also strongly based on non-renewable natural resources, in addition to the pollution generated and social conflicts in areas producing mineral resources.
These green technologies used in the manufacture of their (infrastructure) a set of mineral resources and other elements with a high degree of environmental impacts and the threat to human health, such as adipic acid, gallium arsenide, bauxite (aluminum), cadmium, coal, lead, cobalt, copper, concrete, copper-indium diselenide, tin, ammonium fluoride, graphite, sulfur hexafluoride, sodium hydroxide, indium, lithium, iron ore, molybdenum, nickel, phosphorus oxychloride, petroleum, polymers, silver, silicon, cadmium telluride, and rare earths.
It is worth mentioning that the extraction of minerals occurs in degrading environmental and social situations in developing countries and in poor countries. The documentary shows some of these areas of extraction, which even use child labor and in precarious work situations. Are these the ingredients of sustainable or green technologies? However, this is only part of the revenue sold for sustainability by green capital under the green growth label.
In this recipe for sustainability, based on green technologies, it is also necessary to consider that the entire (infrastructure) of wind and solar generation systems, in addition to electric cars and their accessories, has a limited useful life, therefore, needs to be constantly replaced. Estimates indicate that wind turbines have a useful life of 20 years; solar panels 25 years; electric cars and their batteries 10 years. The amount of waste with a high potential for environmental contamination and human health is enormous. It is worth mentioning that recycling systems in the world are imperfect, with a low recycling rate; recycling is also never complete and always requires the entry of new material and energy to be carried out due to the Entropy Law.
Even the generation of electric energy from wind or solar sources is not immune to environmental and social impacts. Now we have solar and wind deserts, free of fauna and flora, affecting, for example, biodiversity and climate regulation services, in addition to social impacts, as shown in the documentary.
These solar and wind deserts are booming in the world, sustained, and encouraged by the green illusion. After all, economic growth is now green!
Thus, in addition to all the environmental and social impacts related to the extraction and processing of the countless minerals necessary to produce (infrastructure), there are also the impacts arising from use and maintenance. Thus, the ecological, carbon, and water footprint of green technologies are also enormous, especially when we consider their physical scale, which has been systematically neglected by academia, society, political authorities, and environmental leaders. The documentary shows an interesting and ignored scenario by society regarding environmental leadership.
Solar and wind are renewable, but not the (infrastructure) structures built by society necessary to capture them and transform them into electrical energy. It turns out that the energy from the sun or the wind has no value for society, but only electricity. The current society and economic system do not exist without electricity.
The entire technological infrastructure produced by society without electricity is useless.
In view of this situation, there is no other way to face the challenges posed by environmental and social problems, other than the drastic reduction (if not elimination) of the production and consumption of non-essential, luxury or positional goods and services. It does not fit on a planet finite in natural resources, and economic and social system based on the belief of production and growing and infinite consumption and of infinite and insatiable desires; or even in the economic axiom that more is better than less. The production and consumption of such green technologies is just an illusion sold by the political and environmental leaders and the big environmentally friendly corporations.
Our generation needs to wake up urgently from this green illusion! We need to start the change as soon as possible to a social and economic system that recognizes the absolute limits of economic growth, and the false premise that economic growth is possible with environmental protection. We need to move away from this model based exclusively on economic growth, towards a model that aims to improve people’s real and quality of life and environmental quality. How long will we continue to look for the saving sign of our wasteful and inefficient standard of living in the use of natural resources? There is no easy and magical solution to the complex problems that afflict society. When are we going to wake up from the green illusion?
[1] See https://sidra.ibge.gov.br/pesquisa/pam/tabelas
[2] See https://mapbiomas.org/
[3] See https://www.who.int/heli/risks/toxics/chemicalsdirectory/en/index1.html
Junior Garcia, ecological economist, Ph.D. in Economic Development, Space and Environment from the State University of Campinas, a lecturer at Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), and executive director of the Brazilian Society of Ecological Economics.
