Two recent exposes, one by the New York Times over Europe’s ancient forests being reduced to wood pellets for fuel and the other by the BBC over old forests in British Columbia being harvested to fuel a former coal burning power plant in Britain, put a lie to their government’s goal of reducing carbon emissions and does actual harm to the biodiverse habitat Green Parties are joined to protect. Even more dismaying is how powerless, or worse disinterested, all are to stop obviously perverse outcomes against the entrenched interests developed in their name. What the green movement lacks is a true north, a vision which understands what protects and nurtures the environment while also pursuing the betterment of the human condition. Without such a guiding light they are condemned to be forever conned by the political class.
A satellite view of the Earth at night shows areas of light and others of complete darkness. One could argue that the brighter the light or the higher the energy consumption the better the human condition. Contrary to the green intuition that high energy consumption is a bad thing, areas of low or no light are where the impoverished live. It’s where for the lack of fuel people resort to burning dung in confined quarters to cook and heat themselves and breathe in carbon laden smoke. It’s the opposite of cities consuming intense energy.
The green movement suffers from a willingness to be conned and stay conned by solutions that sound like they address their concern for the environment but which actually do it harm because of a preference for intuition over rigorous mathematical calculation. They appear to have no understanding of how the growing intensity of energy benefits the human condition. They look backward to wood for example over the newer source, petroleum while not appreciating how it replaces the need to clear cut forests of biodiversity for energy. Years ago Matt Ridley criticized Britain for defining wood pellets as a renewable form of energy with a satellite shot of the Island of Hispaniola with Haiti on one side and the Dominican Republic on the other. One country was brown and the other green delineated by a clear crisp border. One country burned every piece of wood that could be found and the other subsidized the use of propane gas to save its forests. His point being that modern fuels have a place in saving swathes of geography of unfettered biodiversity. Haiti’s wasteland caused by poverty showcases why people who describe themselves as green must understand energy and its intensity and the inverse relation they both have to poverty and geography.
Germany’s Green Party objection to Nuclear Power is clearly one of intuitive fear over rigorous mathematical calculation in the war against carbon emissions. That it lacks the vision of bettering the human condition clearly shows as Chancellor Olaf Scholz passes a gauntlet of anti nuke protests on his way to a meeting where he was only able to save two of three nuclear power plants from shutting down as planned this year despite Germany’s incipient economic depression and prospect of its citizens freezing. The lights will go dim this winter in Northern Europe as people are forced to burn wood to keep warm, read by its light and breathe in its carbon laden smoke.
Germany’s submission to the fear of nuclear power while also trying to reduce carbon emissions was disastrous for reaching climate goals and left the economy defenseless against Putin’s energy blackmail. Yet the green dummkopfs protest the raising of the village of Lützerath to expand a coal strip mine without realizing this open scar against nature comes from their fear of recommissioning a few idyllically placed nuclear power plants. Without a vision that protects nature and promotes the betterment of the human condition the green movement can be duped into offering policies that have perverse outcomes. Worse yet the politically powerful Green Party, lacking the will to test assumptions and educate its members, gives influence to an ignorant mob that harms what they are joined to protect.
